ALVMNW  BOOK  FVND 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


The  Flying  Teuton 

and  Other  Stories 


BY 
ALICE  BROWN 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  PRISONER,"  ETC. 


&tto  gork 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1918 

AU  righto  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1906,  1912,  1915,  1917 
BT  HARPER  &  BROTHERS 

COPYKIGHT,  1911,  1912 
Br  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

COPYRIGHT,  1913 
BY  THE   ATLANTIC  MONTHLY   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1916 
BY  P.  F.  COLLIER  &  SON 

COPYRIGHT,  1913 
BY  THE   RIDGWAY  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1918 

BY  THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  1918. 


L  M 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  FLYING  TEUTON  .     .     .     .     *     .     •     •       * 

THE  ISLAND       . „     *     .     .     24 

THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH    .     .     .     .     .     .     .     48' 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT    .....     69 

A  CITIZEN  AND  His  WIFE      .     .     *     ,     .     .     97 v 

THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE .     .   122 

THE  TRYST  .......     .     ...   140 

WAVES     .     ... .160 

THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER  ...     i     .     .   178 
THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  .      .....     .200 

THE  MID- VICTORIAN 231 

FATHER .     .  265 

NEMESIS  * 299 


392451 


The  author  gratefully  acknowledges  the  courtesy 
of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Collier's  Weekly,  Every 
body's  Magazine,  Harper's  Magazine  and  Scribner's 
Magazine  in  permitting  the  printing  of  stories  which 
have  first  appeared  in  these  magazines. 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

WE  were  talking,  that  night,  about  the  year  after 
the  great  war,  which  was  also  the  year  of  the  great 
religious  awakening.  A  few  of  us  had  dropped  into 
the  Neo-Pacifist  Club,  that  assemblage  of  old-time 
acifists  who,  having  been  actually  immersed  in  the 
great  war,  afterward  set  humbly  about  informing 
themselves  on  the  subject  of  those  passions  that 
make  the  duty  of  defensive  fighting  at  times  a  holy 
one,  and  who,  having  once  seen  Michael  hurl  Satan 
down  to  the  abyss,  actually  began  to  suspect  you'd 
got  to  do  more  than  read  Satan  the  Beatitudes  if 
he  climbed  up  again.  There  never  was  anything 
like  the  eagerness  of  these  after-the-war  pacifists  to 
study  human  nature  in  other  than  its  sentimental 
aspects,  to  learn  to  predict  the  great  waves  of  sav 
agery  that  wreck  civilization  at  intervals — unless 
there  are  dykes — and  to  plumb  the  heroism  of  those 
men  who  gave  their  bodies  that  the  soul  of  nations 
might  securely  live.  We  retraced  a  good  many  steps 
on  wide  territory  that  night,  took  up  and  looked  at 
things  familiar  we  were  all  the  better  for  remember 
ing,  as  a  man  says  his  creed,  from  time  to  time,  no 
matter  how  well  he  knows  it;  and  chiefly  we  read 
over,  in  its  different  aspects,  the  pages  of  the  great 
revival. 

1 


2  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

This  was  not,  it  will  be  remembered,  an  increase 
in  the  authority  of  any  church,  but  simply  the  recog 
nition  in  all  hearts  of  all  peoples  that  God  is,  and  that 
the  plagues  of  the  world  spawn  out  of  our  forgetful- 
ness  that  He  is,  and  our  overwhelming  desire  toward 
the  things  of  this  temporal  life.  Whence,  in  our 
haste,  we  sacrifice  to  the  devil. 

The  terms  of  peace  had  been  as  righteous  as  it  is 
possible  for  hurt  hearts  to  compass.  Evil  had  been 
bound,  and  foresight  had  made  the  path  of  justice 
plain.  The  nations  that  had  borne  the  first  attack 
(and  with  what  light  limbs  they  sprang  to  meet  it!), 
they  who  had  learned  to  read  God  in  that  awful 
unfurling  of  the  book  of  life,  were  wonderfully  ready 
to  enter  on  their  task  of  building  up  the  house  of 
peace. 

The  United  States,  which  had  saved  its  skin  so  long 
that  it  had  almost  mislaid  its  soul,  was  sitting  at  the 
knees  of  knowledge  and  plainly  asking  to  be  taught. 

One  amazing  detail  of  the  great  revival  was  that 
there  would  be  no  industrial  boycott.  The  men 
about  the  peace  table  came  away  from  it  so  imbued 
with  the  desire  to  save  the  peoples  who  had  been 
guilty  of  the  virtue  of  obedience  in  following  false 
rulers  that  they  represented  to  their  governments  the 
barbarity  of  curbing  even  the  commerce  of  those 
nations  who  had  set  the  world  ablaze.  So  it  fol 
lowed  that  territory  and  indemnities  were  the  pen 
alties  imposed.  Boundaries  had  changed — and  so 
had  governments! — but  every  country  was  to  go 
back  to  its  former  freedom  of  selling  goods  in  all 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  S 

quarters  of  the  earth.  In  their  arguments  the  peace 
delegates  had  used  the  supreme  one  that  "Ven 
geance  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord."  They  had  fixed 
the  terms  of  all  the  vengeance  they  were  sure  they 
were  entitled  to,  fixed  it  soberly  and  sternly,  too. 
But  they  did  not  quite  see,  having  effectually  crippled 
the  powers  of  evil,  that  they  ought  also  to  cripple 
the  powers  of  good — the  desire  of  nations  to  sell 
their  products  and  the  work  of  their  hands  abroad. 
So  they  said,  "Vengeance  is  mine,"  but  they  did  not 
go  so  far  as  to  note  that,  judging  from  the  centuries, 
God  Himself  would  indubitably  be  on  the  spot.  He 
would  repay. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  that  year  that  a  German 
liner,  tied  up  since  1914  and  waiting  the  will  of  the 
English  fleet,  was  released  and  put  into  commission 
again  and  loaded  with  goods  for  the  United  States. 
On  board  her  was  Frank  Drake,  a  newspaper  corre 
spondent,  who  had,  after  hovering  about  the  Peace 
Congress,  been  wandering  over  Germany,  in  a  des 
ultory  fashion,  to  see  what  changes  had  been 
wrought  in  her  by  the  war.  And  it  was  Drake  who 
sat  with  us  at  the  Neo-Pacifist  Club  that  night,  and 
was  persuaded  to  tell  a  story  he  had,  in  the  year  after 
the  Great  War,  got  into  print,  and  so  done  incal 
culable  service  to  the  muse  of  history  and  incidentally 
made  his  own  name  to  be  remembered.  For  what 
he  had  seen  hundreds  of  others  confirmed — only  he 
saw  it  first,  and  gave  his  testimony  in  a  manner  so 
direct  as  well  as  picturesque  that  it  might  as  well 
have  been  he  alone  who  sang  that  epic  story. 


4  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

He  was  a  tough,  seasoned-looking  man,  spare,  and 
hard  as  whipcord,  and  with  an  adventurer's  face — 
aquiline,  uplifted,  looking  for  horizons,  some  one 
said.  At  this  point  of  his  life  he  was  grey-headed — 
yet  he  never  would  be  old.  We  had  gathered  about 
him  as  near  as  might  be,  and  really  filled  the  room 
'way  back  into  the  shadows.  He  had  been  talking 
about  the  supernatural  events  that  had  been  in 
extricably  mingled  with  facts  of  battle  and  march 
and  counter-march,  and  owned  himself  frankly  be 
mused  by  them. 

"It  isn't  as  if  I  hadn't  actually  been  in  the  war, 
you  know.  I've  seen,  things.  I  haven't  the  slight 
est  doubt  a  fellow  blown  out  of  a  trench  into  the 
next  world  meets  so  many  of  the  other  fellows  who 
were  blown  there  before  him  that  it  gives  him  that 
look — I've  seen  it  over  and  over — of  surprise,  wonder 
— oh,  and  beauty,  too,  a  most  awful  kind  of  beauty. 
Whatever  they  saw  when  they  went  from  the 
trenches  to — wherever  it  is — they  were  mighty  well 
pleased  to  be  there,  and  satisfied  that  the  other  fel 
lows  could  get  along  without  them.  And,  mind  you, 
things  lasted,  too,  after  they  got  over  there.  I'm 
as  sure  of  that  as  I  am  that  I'm  sitting  here.  The 
love  of  it  all — the  Vive  la  France!  you  know,  the  gro 
tesque  fondness  for  Old  Blighty  that  made  them  die 
for  her — those  weren't  wiped  out  by  getting  into 
another  atmosphere.  It's  all  pretty  much  the  same, 
you  know,  there  and  here,  only  there  you  apparently 
see  the  causes  of  things  and  the  values.  And  you 
absolutely  can't  hate.  You  see  what  a  damned 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  5 

shame  it  was  that  anybody  should  ever  have  been 
ignorant  enough  to  hate." 

"You'd  say  it  was  a  world  of  peace?"  inquired  a 
rapt-looking  saint  of  a  man  in  the  front  row. 

"Don't  talk  to  me  about  peace — yet,"  said 
Drake.  "  I'm  not  'over  there '  yet,  and  I  haven't  got 
that  perspective.  As  for  Peace,  too  many  crimes 
were  committed  in  her  name  those  last  years  of  the 
war — too  much  cowardice,  expediency,  the  devil  and 
all  of  people  wanting  to  save  their  skins  and  their 
money.  Yes,  I  know,  peace  is  what  they've  earned 
for  us,  those  fellows  in  Europe,  and  it's  a  gorgeous 
peace.  But  the  word  itself  does  take  me  back.  It 
sets  me  swearing. 

"Yes,  I'll  tell  you  about  the  ship,  the  Treue 
Konigin,  and  the  first  sailing  from  Bremen,  if  that's 
what  you  want.  They'd  put  a  good  deal  of  spec 
tacular  business  into  the  sailing  of  that  ship  because 
she  was  the  first  one  after  John  Bull  tied  up  their 
navy.  There  were  flags  flying  and  crowds  and 
Hocks/  and  altogether  it  was  an  occasion  to  be  re 
membered.  I  knew  it  would  be,  and  that's  why  I 
was  there.  I  rather  wanted  to  say  I  was  on  the 
first  free  ship  that  sailed  out  of  Bremen,  and  I 
hadn't  any  Teutonophobia  any  more  since  Kultur 
had  got  its  medicine.  Besides,  wasn't  the  whole 
world  chanting  *  Vengeance  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord'? 
and  I'd  begun  to  be  awakened  a  little,  too,  in  my  in 
ward  parts,  though  I  didn't  talk  much  about  it. 
The  voyage  began  delightfully.  I  was  the  only 
American  on  board.  The  rest  were  merchants  going 


6  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

over  to  take  up  relations  with  us  again,  and  a  brand- 
new  consul  or  two.  I  didn't  have  much  to  do  with 
any  of  those  fellows,  and  the  more  things  happened 
the  more  I  didn't  see  them.  I  didn't  want  to  get  all 
muddled  up  with  the  absurdity  of  the  lay  mind's 
attitude  toward  evidence. 

"Near  evening  on  the  second  day  something 
queer  happened.  It  was  foggy,  and  I  was  on  deck, 
talking,  in  a  desultory  way,  with  the  first  mate,  but 
really  wondering  if  I'd  got  to  sleep  to  the  ob^ligato 
of  the  fog-horn  all  night,  when  suddenly  out  of  the 
dark  came  the  nose  of  a  great  ship.  Our  engines 
were  reversed,  but  not  in  time,  and  she  struck  us 
amidships.  I  cowered  down.  Yes,  I  did.  There 
was  no  time  for  life-preservers  and  lowering  boats. 
I  simply  cowered,  and  put  my  hand  over  my  eyes. 
But  there  was  no  crash,  no  shock,  no  grinding  of 
splintered  wood  and  steel.  I  opened  my  eyes.  The 
first  mate  was  still  there,  a  foot  or  two  further  from 
me,  as  if  the  apparition  had  started  him  toward  his 
duty  in  case  of  collision.  But  he  was  looking  off 
into  the  fog,  and  now  he  turned  and  looked  at  me. 
I  have  seen  men  frightened,  but  never  one  in  such 
case  as  this. 

"  'Did  you  see  it? '  he  asked. 

"It  was  as  if  he  implored  me  to  say  I  had,  because 
otherwise  he'd  have  to  doubt  his  own  reason. 

"'Did  she  sheer  off?' I  said. 

"My  voice  sounded  queer  to  me. 
'  'Sheer  off?    She  struck  us  amidships  and  went 
through  us.' 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  7 

"I  began  to  stare  round  me.  I  must  have  looked 
a  fool.  It  was  as  if  I  were  trying  to  find  a  break  in  a 
piece  of  china.  There  was  the  deck  unoccupied, 
except  for  us  two,  exactly  as  it  had  been  when  we 
were  struck.  There  were  the  smoke-stacks  and 
boats,  and  altogether  the  familiar  outline  of  the 
ship. 

"  'Well!'  said  I.  My  voice  was  a  sort  of  croak 
now.  'You  and  I  are  nutty,  that's  all.  There 
never  was  any  ship.' 

"But  he  turned  and  ran  up  to  the  lookout,  and 
afterward  I  heard  the  wireless  zip-zipping  away,  and 
later — for  I  stayed  on  deck;  I  couldn't  go  below — 
I  saw  him  and  the  captain  standing  amidships  and 
talking.  They  looked  pretty  serious  and  really  a 
little  sick,  just  as  I  felt.  And  I  didn't  speak  to 
either  of  them.  Didn't  dare.  You  know  when 
there's  a  fire  in  the  hold,  or  any  such  pleasantry  on 
board  ship,  you'd  better  let  the  great  high  josses 
alone.  Well,  that's  what  I  did.  The  next  day  I 
found  the  first  mate  wouldn't  notice  me.  He  spoke 
English  perfectly,  but  all  I  could  get  out  of  him  was  a 
Nein  or  a  Was?  and  as  stupid  a  grin  as  I  ever  saw  on 
a  man's  face.  So  I  understood  the  incident  was 
closed.  And  it  began  to  look  a  little  thin  even  to 
me,  who'd  seen  it.  But  the  next  night,  with  no  fog 
at  all,  the  thing  happened  again.  A  big  British  liner 
came  down  on  us,  and  we  did  all  in  the  power  of 
navigation  to  escape  her;  but  she  raked  us  and 
passed  through  us  from  stem  to  stern,  and  I  swear 
I  put  out  a  hand  and  touched  her  as  she  cut  the 


8  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

length  of  the  deck.  For  an  instant  I  believed  what 
I  know  every  officer  and  man  on  the  ship  believed 
at  the  time — believed  madly,  for  you  couldn't 
reason  in  the  face  of  that  monstrous  happening. 
They  believed  England  had  broken  the  peace,  only 
they  cursed  *  perfidious  Albion,'  and  I  knew  she'd 
got  wind  of  some  devil's  deed  we  hadn't  heard  of, 
and  was  at  her  old  beneficence  of  police  work  on  the 
sea.  But  it  was  only  an  instant  we  could  think 
that,  for  there,  untouched,  unharmed,  at  her  maxi 
mum  speed  went  the  English  liner.  And  we,  too, 
were  untouched.  We  weren't  making  our  course 
because  we'd  manoeuvred  so  as  to  avoid  her,  and 
now  we  lay  there  an  instant,  trembling,  before  we 
swung  about  again.  Yes,  it's  a  fact;  the  ship  did 
tremble,  and  though  there  was  her  plain  mechanical 
reason  for  it,  it  seemed  to  be  out  of  panic,  just  as 
everybody  aboard  of  her  was  trembling. 

"And  that  night  the  ship's  doctor,  a  fat,  red-haired 
man  whom  I'd  remembered  as  waltzing  indefatigably 
and  exquisitely  on  a  trip  to  the  West  Indies,  but  who 
had  been  turned  into  a  jelly  of  melancholy  by  the 
war,  did  talk  to  me.  I  think  he  had  to.  He  was 
afraid  he  was  dotty  and  the  entire  lot  were  dotty. 
He  had  to  find  out  whether  a  plain  American  was  on 
to  it. 

"A  pleasant  night,  last  night,"  he  said. 

"I  knew  what  he  was  coming  at,  and  I  thought 

there  was  no  need  of  wasting  our  time  by  preambles. 

'  Yes,'  said  I,  'till  the  British  liner  ran  us  down. ' 

"He  looked  at  me — well,  I  can't  tell  you  how  grate- 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  9 

ful  he  looked.  All  melted  up,  you  know,  the  way 
those  German  fatty s  are  sometimes.  I  stepped  away 
a  little.  I  thought  he  was  going  to  kiss  me. 

"  *  You  saw  it,  too.     God  be  thanked ! '  said  he. 

"'Saw  it!'  said  I.  *I  not  only  saw  her,  but  I 
touched  her  on  the  elbow  as  she  split  the  deck. 
Splendid  old  lady,  wasn't  she?  But  eccentric. 
Makes  nothing  of  cutting  a  ship  in  two,  just  for  fun, 
I  suppose,  and  not  losing  speed.  Her  little  joke. 
That's  how  I  take  it,  don't  you? ' 

"But  I  shouldn't  have  chaffed  him.  It  shut  him 
up.  I  think  he  gathered  I  was  in  it  somehow.  But 
the  fact  is,  I  was  scared.  Well,  if  you'll  believe  me 
(and  of  course  you  will,  for  I've  written  the  thing 
out  in  my  *  Notes  on  the  War,'  and  it's  been  quoted 
over  and  over  till  even  school  children  know  the 
text  of  it),  so,  as  you  must  believe  me  and  the  hun 
dreds  that  corroborated  me,  in  other  cases,  the  next 
collision,  or  ramming — what  shall  I  call  it? — hap 
pened  in  broad  daylight,  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
It  was  a  perfectly  clear  day  and  a  smooth  sea.  We 
were  in  the  track  of  the  freighter  Marlborough,  and 
by  George!  she  didn't  make  way  for  us.  She  ran 
through  us  as  neat  as  wax  and  cut  us  in  two.  But 
we  didn't  stay  cut.  We  didn't  show  a  crack. 
And  there  she  went  churning  off,  as  gay  as  you 
please,  and  we  steamed  on  our  way.  Only  we 
weren't  gay,  mind  you.  We  were  scared.  And  the 
doctor,  ghastly  again,  came  stumping  across  the  deck 
to  me,  and  I  thought  he  was  going  to  fall  into  my 
arms. 


10  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

"  'Lieber  Gott!9  said  he.  'What  does  it  mean? 
We  see  them,  but  they  don't  see  us.' 

"That  was  it.  We'd  been  slow  in  taking  the  hint, 
but  we'd  got  it  at  last.  We  were  invisible  on  the 
seas.  We  were  practically  non-existent.  And  we'd 
tried  wireless.  We'd  sent  out  call  after  call,  and 
finally,  desperately,  S.O.S.,  because  we  knew,  if 
there  were  a  conspiracy  against  us,  no  ship  but  would 
listen  to  that.  No  answer.  We  were  marooned — 
if  you  can  be  marooned  on  the  high  seas.  Civiliza 
tion  had  put  us  on  an  island  of  silence  and  invisi 
bility.  Civilization  wasn't  going  to  play  with  us 
any  more.  But  it  wasn't  civilization  at  all.  It 
wasn't  any  punitive  device  of  man.  It  was  some 
thing  outside. 

"For  the  next  two  days  the  doctor  hardly  left  me. 
I  suppose  he  was  forbidden  to  talk,  and  he  had  to 
keep  near  somebody  or  die.  He  wasn't  the  man  he 
was  when  he  tripped  the  light  fantastic  in  the  West 
Indies.  He'd  been  through  the  war,  and  now  he  was 
going  through  something  worse.  And  he  said  to 
me  the  morning  of  the  day  before  we  were  due  in 
New  York : 

"  'Now  we  shall  be  picking  up  the  pilot.  And  I 
sha'n't  go  back.  I've  got  a  married  daughter  in 
New  York.  I  shall  spend  the  rest  of  my  life  with 
her.' 

"And,  as  we  went  on,  we  sighted  ship  after  ship. 
It  was  a  gay  day  for  ships.  You  don't  know  how 
many  there  are  until  they  won't  notice  you.  And 
not  one  of  them  would  turn  out  for  us  or  answer  our 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  11 

call.  And  everybody  was  desperate  now  on  board, 
though  we  had  learned  we  were  safe  enough,  even 
if  they  did  run  us  down.  So  we  put  on  all  speed  and 
forged  ahead  and  rammed  whatever  got  in  our  way — 
and  never  sank  them.  Never  seemed  to  touch  them. 
But  with  every  one  we  hit  and  never  hurt  our  panic 
grew.  Desperate  panic  it  was,  from  the  captain 
down  to  me.  Then  we  came  on  the  pilot-boats, 
quite  a  distance  out,  for  of  course  everybody  knew 
we  were  coming  and  there  was  a  little  rivalry  about 
it  all.  Just  as  I'd  wanted  to  say  I'd  crossed  on  the 
first  liner  from  Germany,  every  pilot  wanted  to  be 
the  one  to  take  us  in.  Well,  the  first  one  was  making 
for  us  and  we  hailed  him.  But,  by  God!  he  didn't 
slacken  speed,  but  dashed  through  us.  That  little 
bobbing  boat  ran  through  our  High  Mightiness  and 
went  careering  on  in  search  of  us.  And  we  went 
on  in  search  of  another  pilot.  And  we  sighted  him 
shortly,  several  of  him;  and,  though  they  didn't 
ram  us  in  that  ghostly  way  they  had,  they  went 
sliding  by  us,  bowing  and  ducking  to  the  breeze,  and 
always — that  was  the  awful  part  of  it — looking  for 
us.  There  we  were,  and  they  didn't  see  us.  And  we 
hailed  them  and  they  didn't  hear. 

"By  that  time  we  were  all  pretty  nearly  off  our 
nuts,  and  it  took  us  different  ways.  The  captain 
was  purple  with  rage  and  that  sense  of  injured  im 
portance  the  Deutscher  didn't  lose  by  having  to  toe 
the  mark  after  his  big  war  bubble  burst.  He 
swore,  and  I  heard  him,  that  he  could  take  his  own 
ship  into  New  York  Harbor  as  well  as  any  con- 


12  THE   FLYING  TEUTON 

demned  pilot  that  ever  sailed,  and  he  wouldn't 
even  hail  another,  not  even  if  all  the  dead  in  the 
sea  rose  up  and  faced  him.  I  was  rather  worried 
over  that  about  the  dead  in  the  sea.  I  couldn't  help 
thinking  that  if  all  the  dead  recently  in  the  sea  rose 
up  and  combined  against  any  German  ship,  it 
would  have  short  shrift.  But  we  were  all,  I  fancy, 
rather  glad  of  his  stand.  We  had  full  confidence  in 
him.  He  was  a  clever,  daring  fellow,  heavier  by  the 
iron  cross — for  in  the  last  years  he'd  sent  scores  of 
men  unwarned  to  the  bottom,  and  he  had  been 
precious  to  Kultur.  We  much  preferred  to  go  in  un- 
piloted  to  making  even  one  more  grisly  try  at  prov 
ing  we  were  living  flesh  and  blood. 

"  My  own  particular  obsession  was  to  wonder  what 
would  happen  if,  when  a  ship  clove  our  decks  and 
left  them  solid,  as  they'd  done  so  often  in  the  past 
six  days,  I  put  myself  in  the  way  of  its  nose.  Would 
it  run  through  me  like  a  wedge  and  I  close  up  unhurt? 
Would  it  smash  me,  carry  me  with  it  off  the  deck,  to 
Kingdom  Come?  I  wondered.  It  didn't  smash 
life-boats  or  deck-chairs.  It — I  found  I  was  begin 
ning  to  call  the  ramming  boats  '  it, '  as  if  there  were 
but  one  of  them,  though  really  there  were  all  kinds  of 
craft — it  would  go  through  a  rug  on  the  deck  and 
leave  it  in  its  folds.  But  I  hadn't  the  sand  to  put 
myself  in  its  way  and  find  out  beyond  a  peradven- 
ture  whether  it  tore  me,  nerve  from  nerve.  The 
drama  was  too  absorbing.  I  wanted  to  see  it 
through. 

"I  did  once,  in  my  most  daring  minute,  stand  at  the 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  13 

rail,  watching  a  freighter  as  it  came,  head  on.  And 
I  yelled  to  the  lookout,  when  we  were  near  enough  to 
pass  the  time  of  day,  yelled  desperately.  I  can  see 
him  now,  a  small  man  with  a  lined  face  and  blue 
eyes  screwed  up  into  a  point  of  light,  as  if  the  whole 
of  him  concentrated  on  feeding  that  one  sense,  just 
seeing.  And  there  was  a  queer-shaped  scar  on  his 
face,  a  kind  of  cornerwise  scar,  and  I  wondered  how 
he  got  it.  The  freighter  was  making  her  maximum, 
and  so  were  we;  but  in  that  fraction  of  time  I  waited 
for  her  it  seemed  to  be  hours,  eternities,  that  I  had 
my  eyes  on  the  little  man  with  the  scar.  It  seemed  as 
if  he  and  I  alone  had  the  destinies  of  the  world  to 
settle.  If  I  called  and  he  answered  me,  it  would 
prove  our  ship  was  not  lost  in  a  loneness  of  invisi 
bility  more  terrible  than  any  obvious  danger  on  the 
unfriending  seas.  Suppose  you  were  in  hell,  aad  you 
met  face  to  face  somebody  that  had  your  pardon  or 
your  reprieve  mysteriously  about  him,  and  the  pardon 
and  reprieve  of  all  the  other  millions  there — think 
how  you'd  fix  him  with  your  eyes  and  signal,  call  to 
him  for  fear  he'd  pass  you  by.  Well,  that  was  how 
I  signalled  and  called  the  little  man  with  the  scar. 
But  he  stared  through  me  out  of  those  clear  lenses 
of  his  eyes,  and  when  I  yelled  the  loudest  he  made  up 
his  lips  and  began  whistling  a  tune.  It  was  a 
whispering  sort  of  whistle,  but  I  heard  it,  we  were 
so  near.  And  the  tune — well,  the  tune  broke  my 
heart,  for  it  was  an  old  English  tune  that  made  me 
think  of  the  beautiful  English  country  as  I  had  seen 
it  not  many  weeks  before,  with  the  people  soberly 


14  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

beginning  to  till  it  with  unhindered  hands.  And 
here  were  we  on  a  German  ship  that  the  world 
wouldn't  even  see.  The  sun  himself  wouldn't  lend 
his  rays  for  humanity  to  look  at  us.  And  then,  as 
I  began  to  cry — yes,  I  cried;  I'm  not  ashamed  to 
own  it — the  freighter  passed  through  us,  and  I  felt 
the  unsteadiness  of  her  wake.  The  lookout  and  I  had 
met  in  hell,  and  I  had  hailed  and  he  had  not  answered 
me. 

"Was  I  glad  to  see  the  Goddess  of  Liberty  and 
the  gay  old  harbor  of  New  York?  I  believe  you! 
We  went  on  like  a  house  afire,  and  once,  when  I  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  captain's  face,  I  decided  he  could 
steer  his  ship  into  any  harbor  against  unknown  reefs 
and  currents,  because  there  was  a  fury  of  revolt  in 
him,  a  colossal  force  of  will.  And  as  I  thought  that 
I  exulted  with  him,  for  though  nobody  knows  better 
than  I  do  the  way  the  Furies  ought  to  be  out  after 
Kultur — oh  yes,  they'd  have  to  or  lose  their  job — 
there  was  a  kind  of  fighting  grit  that  came  up  in 
me,  and  for  that  voyage  I  was  conscious  that  the 
Treue  Konigin  had  got  to  fight,  fight,  for  existence, 
the  mere  decency  of  being  visible  to  other  men. 

"Did  we  sail  into  New  York  Harbor,  invisible  or 
not?  You  know  as  well  as  I.  The  story's  as  real 
as  George  Washington  and  Valley  Forge,  and  it'll 
stay  in  print,  like  them,  as  long  as  print  exists. 
We  stopped  short,  an  instant  only  it  was,  and  then 
against  the  impetus  of  the  ship  and  the  steering- 
gear,  and  against  the  will  of  her  captain  and  her 
crew,  she  turned  about  and  steamed  away  again. 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  15 

And,  by  the  Lord!  it  was  as  graceful  a  sweep  as  I 
ever  saw  a  liner  make.  I  remember  thinking  after 
ward  that  if  there  were  heavenly  steersmen  on  board 
— the  Furies,  maybe,  taking  the  wheel  by  turns — 
they  knew  little  tricks  of  the  trade  we  pygmies  didn't. 
At  first,  of  course,  this  right-about  didn't  worry  us. 
It  didn't  worry  me,  at  least.  I  thought  the  captain 
had  found  it  a  more  difficult  matter  than  he  thought, 
and  was  going  down  harbor  again,  for  some  myste 
rious  nautical  reason,  to  turn  about  and  make  another 
try.  But  pretty  soon  I  saw  my  fat  doctor  making 
for  me.  He  was  ash-colored  by  now,  and  he  kept 
licking  his  dry  lips. 

"  'We're  going  back,'  he  said. 

"  '  Ah? '  said  I.     'They  don't  find  it  so  easy? ' 

"  'Why,  good  God,  man!'  said  he,  'look  at  the 
sun.  Don't  you  see  your  course?  We're  going 
back,  I  tell  you ! ' 

"  'Back  where?'  I  asked. 

"But  I  didn't  care.  So  long  as  we  made  New 
York  Harbor  within  twenty-four  hours  or  more  I 
wasn't  going  to  complain. 

"  'Where?'  said  he.  He  looked  at  me  now  as  if 
he'd  got  to  teach  me  what  he  knew,  and  I  thought 
I'd  never  seen  eyes  so  full  of  fear,  absolute  fear. 
Nothing  in  mortal  peril  calls  that  look  into  a  man's 
eyes.  It  has  to  be  the  unknown,  the  unaccounted 
for.  '  How  do  I  know  where?  I  only  know  the  ship's 
out  of  our  hands  somehow.  She  won't  answer.' 

"  'Well,'  said  I,  'something's  the  matter  with  the 
machinery/ 


16  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

"  You  see  the  bright  American  air,  the  gay  harbor, 
the  Statue  of  Liberty — everything  had  heartened  me. 
For  an  instant  I  didn't  believe  we  really  were  in 
visible. 

"  'The  machinery's  working  like  a  very  devil,  but 
it's  working  its  own  way.  You  can't  turn  a  nut  on 
this  ship  unless  it  wants  to  be  turned.  You  can't 
change  your  course  unless  this  devil  of  a  ship  wants 
it  changed.' 

"I  laughed  out. 

"  *  You've  been  under  too  much  of  a  strain,'  said 
I.  *  You  seem  to  think  the  ship's  bewitched.  Well, 
if  we're  not  to  dock  in  New  York,  after  this  little 
excursion  down  the  harbor,  where  is  it  your  impres 
sion  we're  going?  Back  to  Germany? ' 

"  'God  knows!'  said  he,  solemnly.  'Maybe  back 
to  Germany.  I  wish  to  God  we  were  there  now. 
Or  maybe  we  shall  sail  the  seas — eternally.' 

"I  laughed  again.  But  he  put  up  his  hand  and  I 
stopped,  his  panic  was  actually  so  terrible.  I  was 
sorry  for  the  beggar. 

'  Wait ! '  said  he.     '  I  thought  that  would  happen. 
I  wonder  it  hasn't  happened  before.' 

"A  man  came  running — the  quartermaster,  I 
found  out  afterward — and  I  had  one  glimpse  of  his 
face  as  he  passed.  He  covered  the  deck  as  if  he  were 
sprinting  and  was  near  the  goal,  and  suddenly  the 
run  seemed  only  to  give  him  momentum  or  get  his 
courage  up,  and  he  slipped  over  the  rail,  with  a  fly 
ing  confusion  of  arms  and  legs,  into  the  sea.  I 
yelled  and  grabbed  a  lifebelt  and  ran  to  the  rail, 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  17 

where  I  knew  there'd  be  sailors,  in  an  instant,  letting 
down  a  boat.  I  threw  my  lifebelt,  and  kept  on  yell 
ing.  But  no  one  came,  no  one  but  the  doctor.  In 
an  instant  I  realized  he  was  by  my  side,  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  his  eyes  fixed  in  a  dull  gaze  on  the  sea. 
And  we  hadn't  slackened  speed,  and  we  hadn't  put 
about,  and  I  saw  two  other  sailors  idly  at  the  rail, 
looking  as  the  doctor  looked,  into  the  vacancy  of 
immediate  space. 

"  'For  God's  sake!'  said  I,  'aren't  they  going  to  do 
something?' 

"  'There's  nothing  to  do,'  said  my  doctor.  'He 
won't  come  up.  They  know  that.' 

"  '  Won't  come  up?     Why  won't  he? ' 
'  Because  he  doesn't  want  to.' 

"  'Didn't  you  ever  hear  of  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,'  I  spluttered,  'that  steps  in  and  defeats 
a  man,  even  when  he  thinks  he's  done  with  life? 
How  do  you  know  but  that  poor  devil  is  back  there 
choking  and  praying  and  swallowing  salt  water,  and 
sane  again — sane  enough  to  see  he  was  dotty  when 
he  swapped  the  deck  for  the  sea?' 

"  '  He  won't  come  up,'  said  the  doctor.  He  turned 
away  and,  with  his  head  bent,  began  to  plod  along  the 
deck.  I  couldn't  help  thinking  of  the  way  he  used 
to  fly  over  the  planks  in  the  West  Indies.  But  he 
did  turn  back  again  for  one  word  more.  '  Did  you,' 
said  he — and  he  looked  a  little — what  shall  I  say? 
— a  little  ironic,  as  if  he'd  got  something  now  to 
floor  me  with — 'did  you  ever  happen  to  hear  of  the 
Flying  Dutchman? ' 


18  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

" Then  I  understood.  They'd  understood  days  and 
days  ago.  The  words  had  been  whispered  round  the 
decks,  in  the  galley  even,  Der  Fliegende  Hollander. 
Knowing  better  than  I  what  Kultur  had  done  on  the 
high  seas,  they  had  hit  sooner  on  the  devilish  logic 
of  it.  They  were  more  or  less  prepared.  But  it 
struck  me  right  in  the  center.  After  they'd  once 
said  it  I  didn't  any  more  doubt  it  than  if  I'd  been 
sitting  in  an  orchestra  stall,  with  the  score  of  the 
old  'Flying  Dutchman*  and  the  orchestra's  smash- 
bang,  and  the  fervid  conductor,  with  his  bald  head, 
to  divert  me  for  a  couple  of  hours  or  so.  And  I 
went  down  into  my  cabin  and  stretched  out  in  my 
berth  and  shut  my  eyes.  And  all  I  remember  think 
ing  was  that  if  we  were  going  to  sail  the  seas  in 
visible  till  doomsday,  I'd  stay  put,  and  not  get  dotty 
seeing  the  noses  of  ships  cleaving  the  deck  or  trying 
to  hail  little  whistling  men  with  scars  on  their  faces 
and  finding  that,  so  far  as  they  knew,  I  wasn't  in  the 
universe  at  all.  I  think  I  dozed  for  a  matter  of  two 
days.  The  steward  brought  me  grub  of  a  primitive 
sort — our  cuisine  wasn't  what  it  had  been  coming 
over — and  news,  whenever  I  would  take  it  from  him. 
There  had  been  more  of  the  ghastly  collisions.  We 
had  picked  up  S.O.S.  from  an  English  ship  and  gone 
to  her  rescue,  to  find  we  could  neither  hail  her  nor, 
though  we  launched  boats,  approach  her  within 
twenty  feet.  Why?  The  same  reason  that  pre 
vented  our  going  into  New  York  Harbor,  if  you  can 
tell  me  what  that  was.  And  in  the  midst  of  these 
futile  efforts  a  Brazilian  freighter  came  along  and  did 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  19 

the  salving  neatly,  and  neither  ship  was  any  more 
aware  of  us  than  if  we  had  been  a  ship  of  air.  But  my 
chief  news,  the  only  news  that  mattered,  I  got  from 
the  steward's  face.  It  was  yellow-white,  and  the 
eyes  were  full  of  that  same  apprehension  I  had 
learned  to  know  now — the  fear  of  the  unknown. 
He  brought  sparse  items  he  dropped  in  a  whisper,  as 
if  he  had  been  forbidden  to  speak  and  yet  must  speak 
or  die — about  the  supply  of  water,  the  supply  of  coal. 
It  was  his  theory  that,  when  the  coal  actually  gave 
out  and  the  engines  stopped,  we  should  stay  ever 
lastingly  tossing  in  the  welter  of  the  sea,  watching 
the  happy  wings  of  commerce  go  sailing  by  and  hailed 
of  none.  But  that  proved  not  to  be  so,  and  when  he 
told  me  that  it  scared  him  doubly.  For  we  econ 
omized  coal  to  the  last  point,  and  it  proved  the  en 
gines  went  excellently  without  it,  so  long,  at  least, 
as  we  kept  our  course  for  Germany.  Evidently,  so 
far  as  we  could  guess  at  the  designs  of  those  grim 
powers  that  had  blocked  our  way,  a  German  ship 
was  to  be  aided,  even  by  miracle,  to  sail  back  to 
Germany,  but  not  to  enter  any  foreign  port. 

"And  we  did  go  back  to  Germany,  meeting  mean 
time  other  German  ships  just  out,  and  we  hailed 
them  and  they  saw  us  and  answered.  And  the  same 
fear  was  on  the  faces  of  every  soul  on  board,  and  the 
news  was  in  every  case  the  same.  They  were,  to 
all  the  ships  of  all  the  world,  invisible. 

"We  slunk  into  harbor,  and  I  have  never  known 
how  the  captain  met  his  company  or  what  exporters 
said  to  the  consignments  of  merchandise  returned  un- 


20  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

touched  in  the  hold.  I  only  know  that  the  shore 
officials  looked  strangely  at  us,  and,  since  we  told  the 
same  mad  story,  seemed  to  think  a  whole  ship's 
crew  could  hardly  be  incarcerated.  You  must  re 
member,  too,  that  since  the  war  signs  and  wonders 
have  had  a  different  value.  There  have  been  too 
many  marvels  for  men  to  scout  them.  There  was 
the  marvel  of  the  victory,  you  know.  But  we  won't 
go  into  that.  I  suppose  books  will  be  written  about 
it  until  the  end  of  time. 

"You  may  be  sure  of  one  thing — I  didn't  let  the 
grass  grow  under  my  feet.  I  made  tracks  for  Hol 
land,  and  from  there  I  put  for  England,  and  sailed 
from  Liverpool,  and  was  in  New  York  in  a  little 
over  five  days.  And  by  that  time  the  whole  world 
knew.  German  ships  were  in  full  possession,  as  they 
had  been  before  the  war,  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas — 
except  that  they  mysteriously  could  not  use  it. 
German  ships  took  passengers,  as  of  old,  and  loaded 
themselves  with  merchandise.  But  there  was  not  a 
port  on  the  surface  of  the  globe  that  could  receive 
them.  Yet  there  was  a  certain  beneficence  in  the 
power  that  condemned  them  to  this  wandering  exile 
— they  could  go  home.  And  so  strange  a  thing  is 
hope,  and  so  almost  unbreakable  a  thing  is  human  will, 
that  they  would  no  sooner  go  home  in  panic  than  they 
would  recover  and  dare  the  seas  again,  as  if,  perad- 
venture,  it  might  be  different  this  time,  or  as  if  the 
wrath  of  the  grim  powers  might  be  overpast.  And  it 
came  out  that  the  shipping  rotted  in  their  harbors, 
and  there  were  many  suicides  among  sailingmen." 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  21 

When  Drake  reached  this  point  in  his  story  he 
almost  always  got  solemn  and  rhythmic.  His  book 
was  succinctly  and  plainly  written,  but  he  could 
never  speak  of  its  subject-matter  without  the  rhythm 
of  imagery. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "it  wasn't  expected,  while 
the  war  was  going  on,  that  there  would  be  a  living 
being,  not  of  Teutonic  birth,  who  would  ever  be  sorry 
for  a  Teuton  until  near  the  tail  end  of  time,  when 
some  of  the  penalties  had  been  worked  out.  But, 
by  George!  the  countries  that  had  been  injured  most 
were  the  first  to  be  sorry  for  the  poor  devils  that  had 
prated  about  the  freedom  of  the  seas  and  now  had  to 
keep  their  own  ships  tied  up  in  harbor,  tight  as  in 
war-time,  because  the  fleet  that  withstood  them,  drew 
the  mighty  cordon,  was  the  fleet  of  God.  Belgium 
had  prayers  for  the  German  fleet.  England  sent 
experts  over  to  see  what  was  the  matter  with  their 
engines.  Russia  prayed  for  the  boats,  as  she  had 
for  her  four-footed  beasties  in  the  war,  and  France — 
well,  France  proposed  that  she  and  England  should 
establish  a  maritime  service  from  Germany  to  the 
United  States  and  South  American  ports,  with  nom 
inal  freight  rates,  until  the  world  found  out  what  the 
deuce  was  the  matter  or  what  God  actually  meant. 
And  it  was  to  begin  the  week  before  Christmas,  if 
you  remember,  and  something  put  it  into  the  clever 
French  brain  that  maybe  a  German  Christmas  ship — 
a  ship  all  full  of  toys  and  dolls — might  be  let  to  pass. 
France  didn't  think  it  was  bamboozling  God  by 
swinging  a  censer  of  sentiment  before  Him;  but  it 


22  THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

knew  God  might  be  willing  to  speak  our  little  lan 
guage  with  us,  encourage  us  in  it,  let  us  think  He 
knew  what  we  were  trying  to  tell  Him  when  we  took 
the  toys  and  dolls. 

"And,  if  you  remember,  a  string  of  ships  went  out 
that  day,  all  with  pretty  serious  men  on  board,  men 
of  an  anxious  countenance.  And  the  British  and 
French  ships  convoyed  them  like  mother  birds,  and 
other  British  and  French  ships  met  them,  and  for 
a  time  no  Teuton  ship  dared  speak  a  foreign  one  for 
fear  it  should  not  be  answered.  But  finally  one — it 
was  my  old  ship,  the  Treue  Konigin,  and  on  her  my 
old  captain — couldn't  wait  any  longer,  and  did  speak, 
and  every  French  and  English  boat  answered  her, 
and  she  knew  she  and  the  rest  were  saved — for  the 
eyes  of  man  could  see  them  and  the  ears  of  man  were 
opened  to  their  voice.  And  that's  all.  You  know 
the  rest — how  the  German  navy  slowly  and  soberly 
built  up  its  lines  and  sailed  the  seas  again;  but  how 
nobody  ceased  talking  of  the  wonder  of  the  time  when 
it  was  under  the  ban  of  judgment.  And  nobody 
ever  will  cease,  because  of  all  the  signs  and  marvels 
of  these  later  years  this  was  the  greatest." 

"I  have  heard,"  said  the  pacifist  in  the  front  row — 
"I  hardly  like  to  mention  it;  these  things  are  best 
forgotten — that  there  is  one  submarine  that  actually 
does  sail  the  sea,  and  never  has  found  rest.  But 
that,  they  say,  is  sometimes  visible." 

"Yes,"  said  Drake.  He  looked  grim  now,  and 
nobody  could  doubt  that  he  knew  whereof  he  spoke. 
"  She  is  sometimes  visible.  She  plies  back  and  forth 


THE  FLYING  TEUTON  23 

along  the  Irish  coast.  I'd  heard  it  over  and  over, 
and  I'd  heard  that  on  the  seventh  of  May  she  shows 
her  periscope.  She  is  obliged  to.  And  they  say  she 
has  one  passenger — the  Man  We  Do  Not  Mention." 

"Do  you  suppose — "  began  the  pacifist,  and  Drake 
interrupted  him : 

"Do  I  suppose  that  sentence  ever  will  be  worked 
out?  Maybe  it  isn't  a  sentence.  Maybe  it's  a 
warning,  against  pride  and  cruelty  and  lust  of  power; 
maybe  the  Man  We  Do  Not  Mention  is  condemned  to 
sail  it,  and  sails  it  in  fear  and  hate.  But  maybe  he 
sails  it  in  humility  by  now,  and  is  willing  to  be  hated, 
so  long  as  he  can  be  the  warning  to  the  world — the 
warning  against  his  sins.  Do  you  know,  I've  often 
wondered  if  he  knows  one  thing — if  h*  knows  that, 
whenever  toasts  are  drunk  in  Germany,  it  isn't  now 
Der  Tag,  but  it  is,  since  that  day  when  England  and 
France  joined  hands  to  help  their  scared  old  enemy, 
'  The  Fleet!'" 

"He'd  think  it  meant  the  German  navy,  anyway," 
said  a  younger,  unregenerate  man,  who  was  no  paci 
fist — only,  being  young,  too  quick  of  tongue  and  rash 
of  apprehension. 

"Oh  no,  he  wouldn't,"  said  Drake,  a  very  warm 
tone  in  his  voice.  It  told  youth  it  didn't  know  what 
its  elders  had  been  through.  "  He'd  know  it  meant — 
The  Fleet!" 


THE  ISLAND 

JOHN  HADDON  went  down  with  one  of  the  first 
passenger  ships  " spurlos  versenkt"  and,  after  varying 
tragedy  and  bewilderment,  survived,  and  I  was  told 
by  an  intimate  friend  of  us  both  the  extraordinary 
impression  the  catastrophe  and  the  rescue  had 
stamped  upon  his  memory.  I  never  for  a  moment 
believed  we  were  to  accept  the  tale  as  anything  but 
the  sad  overflow  of  disaster  left  in  a  mind  submerged 
and  then  bared  by  the  receding  tide.  I  was  con 
vinced,  and  this  without  surprise,  that  Haddon  had 
suffered  shock  and  never  recovered  from  it,  that  he 
would  be  moved  by  unhealthy  or  at  least  disturbing 
recollections  to  the  end  of  his  mortal  time.  And 
then  I  met  him  face  to  face,  when  we  were  both  going 
over,  the  next  year,  on  business  connected  with  the 
Allies,  and  he  came  straight  to  me  and  made  himself 
known.  I'd  heard  he  was  on  board,  and  had  ex 
pected  to  see  a  man  not  quite  rectilinear  in  his  relation 
to  other  normal  things,  twisted  by  the  fire  and  ice  of 
what  he  had  been  through.  But  there  walked  up 
to  me  on  deck  a  fine,  keen,  bronzed  athlete  with 
far-seeing  blue  eyes  and  an  extraordinarily  sweet 
smile  on  resolute  lips. 

"I'm  Haddon,"  said  he.  "I  know  who  you  are. 
Wentworth  has  talked  about  you." 

24 


THE  ISLAND  25 

So  at  once  we  were  cronies,  beginning  a  good  num 
ber  of  steps  further  on  from  our  common  acquaint 
ance  with  Wentworth,  and  being  warmly  ready  to 
continue.  We  ate  and  lounged  together  and  had 
long  subdued  talks  when  we  ran  through  the  dan 
gerous  dark,  a  black  speck  on  a  blacker  waste. 
We  didn't  mention  shipwreck  or  the  perils  of  the 
sea.  Although  he  was  such  a  daylight  sort  of  per 
son,  with  nothing  even  of  the  haze  of  fancy  about 
him,  I  understood  that  was  the  thing  which  should 
be  tabu.  But  one  night  when  we  were  talking  the 
dark  away,  he  brought  a  thrill  into  my  breath  by 
himself  grazing  what  I  thought  that  danger  line 
and  in  as  commonplace  a  manner  as  if  he  had  been 
describing  a  stroll  on  Broadway. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "I  went  down  in  the 
Artemisia."  (That  name  will  serve.) 

"Yes,"  I  said,  gulping,  "Wentworth  told  me." 

"He  didn't  need  to,"  said  Haddon,  with  a  little 
laugh.  "Of  course  we  were  all  pretty  well  known, 
by  name,  at  least.  We  were  very  much  in  the  public 
eye — necessarily.  You  can't  find  yourself  the  victim 
of  a  hellish  tragedy  and  not  continue  to  be  a  marked 
man  throughout  your  natural  life.  Did  Wentworth 
tell  you  what  really  happened  to  me?" 

"He  told  me  you  were  one  of  the  last  picked  up," 
I  said.  I  was  in  a  fever  of  wanting  to  say  the  right 
thing,  knowing  what  even  a  word  might  recall  to 
him.  "He  said  it  wasn't  apparent  exactly  how  you 
were  saved,  how  you'd  kept  afloat  so  long,  or  what 
the  live-preserver  was — " 


26  THE  ISLAND 

"He  knew  perfectly  well  what  it  was,"  said 
Haddon,  in  a  brusque  but  indulgent  kindliness. 
"So  do  you,  only  you  can't  account  for  it  and  so 
you  don't  want  to  mention  it  and  go  wrong.  Don't 
mince  matters.  You  needn't.  I  don't." 

"Well,"  said  I  desperately,  "he  said  the  life-belt 
hadn't  belonged  to  the  Artemisia  at  all,  but  that  old 
tramp,  the  Elsinore,  that  was  lost  a  dozen  years  ago." 

"Precisely,"  said  Haddon.  "That  was  what 
happened,  and  it's  never  been  explained  and  never 
will  be,  except  by  me,  and  if  you  don't  believe  what 
I  say  you'll  be  no  better  for  my  opening  up  to  you. 
Did  Wentworth  tell  you  I  took  that  trip  on  the 
Artemisia  just  because  Amy  Lake  was  going  over 
and  I  was  in  love  with  her  and  couldn't  let  her  go 
alone?" 

"No,"  said  I,  a  little  shocked  that  Wentworth's 
reticence  on  so  fine  an  issue  could  be  suspected  for 
a  moment.  "He  didn't  mention  her." 

"No,  of  course  not,"  said  Haddon.  "I  knew  it, 
really.  But  that  was  the  fact.  Did  you  know  Amy 
Lake?" 

I  had  seen  her  once  and  never  forgotten  her,  a 
tall  sweet  creature  in  light  grays,  a  winter  outfit 
that  made  her  look  appropriately  like  some  fleet, 
fine  animal,  through  an  invulnerable  yet  sensitive 
strength  adapted  to  rigors  and  winter  snows.  She 
had  come  into  a  vociferous  tea-room  for  a  minute, 
and  drunk  her  sip  or  two  with  a  healthy  relish  and 
gone  away  again,  leaving  a  blankness  over  all  our 
talk  and  a  duller  atmosphere. 


THE  ISLAND  27 

"I  was  in  love  with  her,  of  course,"  said  Haddon 
quietly. 

The  tone  was  an  implication  that  he  didn't  really 
need  to  say  it  to  a  person  of  ordinary  penetration. 
I  took  it  acquiescently.  I  thought  so,  too.  She  was 
one  of  the  women  who,  without  challenging  the 
senses,  leave  such  an  impression  of  beauty  and 
harmony  that  all  men  not  of  the  roughest  type  can 
at  least  see  why  some  men  should  adore  them. 

"I  hoped,"  he  said,  "I  should  have  opportunities 
on  the  voyage  such  as  I'd  never  had,  get  nearer  her, 
you  know,  understand  her  a  little  and  let  her  see  I 
was  trying  to.  We'd  always  been  separated  by  a 
lot  of  things  before,  other  people,  relatives,  the  gen 
eral  gregariousness  of  what  they  call  society,  and 
after  the  war  began,  the  whole  terrible  business. 
That,  of  course,  did  bring  us  together  in  essentials. 
We  were  both  getting  ready  to  go  over  to  England 
and  being  hindered  in  ways  you  can  guess.  But 
somehow  we  didn't  talk  much  about  ourselves;  the 
desperate  big  thing  overpowered  us  and  prevented 
it.  But  on  that  voyage  we  began  to  take  each  other 
for  granted.  We  recognized — I  did,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  I  very  soon  guessed  she  did — we  recog 
nized  we'd  got  more  to  say  to  each  other  than  all 
the  other  passengers — and  the  world,  for  that  mat 
ter — had  to  say  to  either  of  us.  We  saw  at  last 
our  interests — our  spiritual  interests,  you  must 
let  me  say — were  identical.  I  like  to  tell  you  this 
because  I  want  you  to  see  how  the  things  that  hap 
pened  afterward,  after  the  sinking,  were  founded 


28  THE  ISLAND 

on  what  came  legitimately  all  along.  I  should  be 
ashamed  to  keep  it  to  myself  as  something  sacred 
when  it  might  start  out  a  writing  person  like  you 
into  charting  certain  facts  that  ought  to  be  common 
possessions  if  we're  ever  going  to  believe  in  the 
sanity  and  security  of  the  universe  again.  We'd 
talked,  that  last  night,  about  the  Island  you  see 
from  Innishmore.  You  know  about  it." 

"I  hadn't  thought  of  it  for  years,"  I  said,  "until 
Went  worth  reminded  me,  and  then  I  knew  I'd 
heard  a  particularly  sweet  ballad  singer  sing  about 
it,  and  I  remembered  a  line  or  two." 

"Yes,"  said  Haddon.  "Amy  remembered  more 
than  that.  She'd  copied  the  whole  ballad,  and  sang 
it  to  me  in  a  purling  little  whisper.  Of  course, 
when  I  came  to  life  again  after  the  Artemisia  devil 
ment,  I  looked  up  every  word  there  is  about  the 
Island.  There  isn't  much.  You're  most  likely  to 
see  it  from  Innishmore,  but  not  only  from  there  but 
when  you're  at  sea  off  the  Irish  coast.  One  of  you 
writing  persons  says  it's  seen  only  in  certain  lights  or 
moods  of  the  mind."  Now  Haddon's  voice  took  on 
the  measured  carefulness  of  one  quoting  from  an 
other  who  perhaps  wrote  in  a  style  foreign  to  his  own 
homespun  speech.  "It  is  an  island  that  is  some 
times  actually  seen.  But  mostly  it  isn't  there. 
And  when  it  is  there  it  is  almost  always  when  the 
traveler  is  setting  out  for  far  shores  and  his  heart  is 
full  of  longing  to  return.  Some  might  think  it  the 
embodiment  of  his  longings.  Some  might  call  it  a 
mirage  of  hope.  It  is  believed  also  that  not  only 


THE  ISLAND  29 

is  the  island  visible  in  beatific  or  passionately  sor 
rowful  states  of  mind,  but  that  it  actually  does 
exist  in  the  Atlantic,  though  again  it  is  withdrawn. 
Whether  it  is  a  sort  of  amaranthine  flower  of  the 
past  no  one  knows,  or  whether  the  mind,  projecting 
into  the  future,  creates  a  jewel  of  its  own  in  a  waste 
of  sea.  You  can  imagine,"  Haddon  concluded, 
dropping  his  tone  of  heedful  recollection,  "how  an 
emigrant,  starting  out  from  the  old  country  in  the 
days  of  the  longer  voyage,  saw  it  in  the  sunset  light, 
all  golden  turrets  and  shimmering  mists." 

"They  called  it,  didn't  they,"  I  asked,  "the  para 
dise  of  the  pagan  Irish?" 

"It  is  the  paradise  of  more  than  the  pagan  and 
more  than  the  Irish,"  said  he.  "It's  a  stepping 
stone,  a  refuge — well!" 

That  last  word  held  an  infinity  of  meanings.  It 
seemed  to  draw  pitying  attention  to  the  guidebook 
childishness  which  accounts  for  things  and  stops 
contented  and  his  own  happier  estate  now  that  he 
knew. 

"The  next  day,"  he  said,  "that  noon,  that  lunch 
eon — but  I  won't  talk  about  that." 

"No,"  I  put  in  hastily.  I  wanted  to  spare  him 
the  rehearsal  of  the  tragedy.  I  had  an  unreasoned 
feeling  he'd  go  all  to  pieces  if  he  tried  to  travel  that 
watery  road  again  and  tell  what  the  sea  had  done  to 
him. 

"But  after  luncheon,"  he  went  on,  "I  couldn't 
find  her,  and  for  some  reason  I  didn't  understand 
then  I  was  desperately  anxious  to.  You  see  the 


30  THE  ISLAND 

time  began  to  look  so  short,  and  however  closely  I 
might  be  able  to  tie  up  our  destinies  and  plans  over 
there,  it  wouldn't  be  the  same  as  that  shipboard 
solitude.  Besides,  I  felt  as  if  we  should  be  caught 
up  and  whirled  round  in  such  a  sea  of  bigger  things 
that  my  own  paltry  desires  would  have  to  wait 
indefinitely,  as  if  there'd  be  no  question  but  I  should 
want  them  to  wait.  Everything  would  be  war. 
Well,  I  went  on  deck  and  I  saw  her  there  before  me 
not  ten  paces  away,  and  she  turned  to  me  smiling, 
and — it  came.  I've  never  had  any  heart  to  talk 
about  the  sensations  of  the  minute  because,  for  me, 
they  all  involved  her.  The  whole  thing  was  con 
nected  with  her,  as  if  a  colossal  power  had  risen  up, 
hostile  to  her,  and  had  accepted  that  tremendous 
destruction  as  a  condition  of  its  being  able  to  destroy 
her  with  it.  I  felt  as  if  I  were  leaping,  the  whole  of 
me,  to  get  to  her  before  we  were  separated  forever, 
and  yet  maybe  I  didn't  move  before  I  was  crushed 
and  suffocated  and  snuffed  out.  That  part  of  it  is 
where  my  brain  fails  me.  I  didn't  know,  I  don't 
know  now,  where  my  consciousness  stopped,  whether 
I  did  struggle  and  it  went  on  faintly  and  faded  out 
at  last,  or  whether  I  was  hit.  When  I  came  to 
myself  I  simply  was  alive,  delightfully  alive,  and  in 
another  place.  It  was  an  Island,  for  there  was  the 
sea.  It  had  the  verdure  of  the  British  Isles,  but  its 
atmosphere  was  unlike  anything  I'd  seen.  And 
there  was  Amy  close  in  front  of  me,  and  we  laughed, 
we  were  so  glad,  and  she  said  to  me: 
"'The  Island!'" 


THE  ISLAND  31 

"'Do  you  think  so?'  I  asked,  for  it  looked  more 
beautiful  than  the  song,  and  was  really  so  impalpable 
in  spite  of  its  reality  that  I  couldn't  fit  it  into  any 
previous  conception." 

"'But  look,'  she  said,  'all  that  golden  mist.  And 
the  towers.  They're  not  real  towers.  They're 
sunlight,  don't  you  think?'" 

'"Oh,  yes,  they're  real  enough,'  I  said.  'Don't 
you  see  how  they  come  out  of  the  rock  itself?" 

'"That's  not  rock,'  said  she.  'It's  as  misty  as 
the  towers.'" 

'"Well,  it's  solid,  too,'  I  said,  and  then  I  realized 
we  were  talking  absurdly.  We  were  simply  trying 
to  fit  old  expressions  to  new  uses,  and  the  real  fact 
was  also  that  our  eyes  were  giving  us  more  data 
than  our  minds  could  use." 

"How  did  she  look?"  I  asked.     "Amy?" 

I  had  to  call  her  that.  The  strange  thing  that  had 
happened  to  her  seemed  to  remove  her  absolutely 
from  ordinary  customs  of  speech. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "that's  the  queer  part  of  it. 
She  was  herself,  and  yet  different.  I  was  amazed  at 
her.  I  puzzled  over  her.  She  was  beautiful,  you 
understand,  more  beautiful  than  ever.  That  was 
it.  I  at  once  got  the  idea  I'd  never  seen  the  real 
Amy,  and  this  was  she.  Maybe  I  was  different,  too, 
for  she  said  to  me  suddenly — and  laughed — 'How 
nice  you  look!'  But  I  don't  know." 

"I  mean,"  I  ventured,  though  it  seemed  a  childish 
thing  to  insist  on,  "what  did  she  wear?  The  same 
things  she  had  on  when  you  saw  her  on  the  deck?  " 


32  THE   ISLAND 

"That's  it,"  said  he.  "That's  the  big  puzzle. 
Wentworth  asked  me  that,  and  though  I've  almost 
hammered  my  head  to  think,  I  couldn't  tell  him. 
Whatever  it  was,  it  was  beautiful.  And  familiar. 
Beyond  that  I  don't  know.  And  I  don't  know 
about  the  other  people  either." 

"Oh,  there  were  other  people?"  I  asked. 

"Scores  of  'em,  and  all  busy,  and  for  a  while  all 
hurrying  and  talking.  It  was  evidently  a  time  of 
unusual  excitement.  For  there  were  ships  coming 
in — sail  boats,  beauties — and  people  landing  from 
them.  And  everybody  was  met  and  evidently 
made  to  feel  it  was  tremendously  nice  they'd  come, 
and  there  was  a  good  deal  of  laughing  and  relief. 
That's  it.  There  was  relief  in  the  air,  as  if  there'd 
been  a  cloudburst  and  now  the  sun  was  out  and 
people  were  saying  to  one  another,  'It  didn't  do 
any  damage,  after  all." 

"And  did  you  really  think  you  were  on  the  fabu 
lous  Island?"  I  asked. 

I  wanted  to  pin  him  down  to  as  literal  fact  as  he 
could  manage. 

He  laughed. 

"Not  for  an  instant,"  he  answered,  "then. 
Amy'd  said  so,  you  remember,  and  I  partially  agreed, 
but  it  was  only  because  we  were  so  light-hearted  we 
said  the  first  things  that  came  into  our  heads. 
Really,  I  was  perfectly  sure  we  were  on  the  coast  of 
Ireland.  I  assumed  that,  without  a  doubt.  And 
when  things  had  quieted  down  a  little  and  our 
passengers  were  dispersing,  going  off  by  ones  and 


THE   ISLAND  33 

twos  with  the  Island  people,  I  went  up  to  the  Tall 
Man—" 

"Who  was  he?"  I  interrupted. 

"I  don't  know.     I  never  even  heard  his  name." 

"You  don't  assume,"  I  hesitated,  "it  was  — " 
and  this  was  the  only  way  I  could  end — "some  one 
supernatural?  " 

"Bless  you,  no,"  said  he.  "I  call  him  the  Tall 
Man  simply  because  he  was  tall  and  I  don't  know 
his  name.  And  he  was  most  certainly  some  one  in 
authority.  I  went  up  to  him  and  said,  *  Can  we  hire 
any  sort  of  conveyance  to  take  us  to  Queenstown 
or  somewhere  else  where  we  can  get  passage  for 
England?' 

"And  he  looked  at  me,  a  long  look,  and  smiled. 
And  then  I  knew.  But  I  didn't  dare  look  at  Amy. 
I  thought  it  might  frighten  her,  you  see.  But  I 
might  have  known.  She'd  guessed  it  from  the  first. 
She  took  my  hand,  and  we  stood  there  like  two  chil 
dren,  not  in  any  way  distressed,  but  coming  out  of 
a  wood-path  to  an  open  door,  a  little  curious  and 
pretty  excited. 

" Don't  you  see,  John?'  said  Amy.  'Don't  you 
know?' 

"And  then  I  said  it.  My  voice  sounded  strange 
tome. 

"'Ami— dead?' 

"For  the  minute  I  forgot  her.  I  rather  think  the 
soul  has  to  face  that  one  thing  alone,  and  now  it  was 
my  turn  to  face  it. 

" '  Yes,'  said  Amy.     It  was  the  most  commonplace 


S4  THE  ISLAND 

*yes/  y°u  ever  heard.  She  might  have  been  encour 
aging  a  child,  after  he'd  come  out  of  some  bad  bus 
iness  like  an  anaesthetic.  'Now  let's  get  to  work. 
Isn't  there  something,'  she  said  to  the  Tall  Man, 
'we  can  do?' 

"He  was  immensely  pleased  with  her.  She 
seemed  to  have  been  clever  in  accepting  it  and  adapt 
ing  herself,  as  you  might  say. 

"'Yes,'  he  said,  'there  are  lots  of  things  you  can 
do.' — And  I've  got  to  break  off  right  here  and  say 
I  don't  know  whether  those  were  his  actual  words. 
But  it  was  the  sense  of  them.  And  then  he  looked 
doubtful  and  queer.  'The  fact  is,'  he  said,  'I'm 
not  sure,  you  know,  whether  you're  both  going  to 
stay.' 

"'Oh,  you  mean,' said  Amy — and  when  it  comes 
to  her  I  could  swear  to  every  word — 'you're  not 
sure  whether  we're  both  dead.'  It  seems  astonish 
ing  to  me,  the  way  she  used  that  word  we  hate  so, 
lightly,  you  know,  as  if  it  meant  something  rather 
warm  and  pleasant.  And  then  she  snatched  at  my 
hand  and  held  it  tight.  '  We've  got  to  be,'  she  said. 
'If  one  of  us  is,  the  other's  got  to  be,  too.' 

'"I  know,'  he  said.  He  seemed  to  understand 
perfectly.  'And  it  may  be  so.  But  I  have  a  kind 
of  a  doubt — '  and  then  he  seemed  to  recall  himself 
and  remember  he  mustn't  say  more  than  he  actually 
knew.  'Anyway,'  he  went  on,  'it  doesn't  matter, 
and  for  the  present,  at  least,  you're  on  the  Island. 
And  you've  come  at  a  time  of  a  good  deal  of  anxiety 
for  us — ' 


THE  ISLAND  35 

"'How  can  you  have  anxieties,'  said  Amy,  'if 
you're  all  dead?' 

"He  smiled  at  her. 

"'Aren't  you  anxious?'  he  asked. 

"And  that  reminded  her. 

"'Of  course,'  she  said.  'Why,  I  hadn't  thought. 
I'd  forgotten  them — father  and  mother.  But  they'll 
be  hearing — oh,  think  how  it'll  come  to  them.  In 
an  instant,  maybe  a  cable  message,  maybe  a  line 
in  a  newspaper.  Oh,  how  horrible  of  me  to  be 
happy  for  a  minute!' 

"'That's  it,'  he  said.  'You've  got  to  be  anxious 
so  long  as  you  love  anything  on  the  earth — that  is, 
while  the  earth's  in  the  state  it  is  now.  And  we're 
anxious  about  England.' 

"'Then  you're  English,'  I  asked,  'all  of  you.' 

'"No,  no,'  he  said.  'But  we  used  to  belong  to 
her,  you  see,  we  were  a  part  of  her.  I  mean,  the 
actual  Island.  And  those  old  birth  bonds  hold. 
Why,  look  at  me.  I ' — he  smiled  at  Amy — as  if  he 
must  indulge  her — 'I  died,  we'll  say — and  I  don't 
mind  the  word — a  long,  long  time  ago,  and  yet  I 
never' ve  been  willing  to  leave  here.' 

'"Could  you  leave?'  Amy  asked  him  quickly.  I 
think  she  saw  herself  hurrying  back  to  America 
for  a  minute — invisible  herself,  maybe — a  minute 
of  comfort  for  her  father  and  mother.  'Is  it  per 
mitted?' 

'"Oh,  yes,'  he  said,  'anything's  permitted.  The 
things  that  wouldn't  be  permitted  you  simply  don't 
want  to  do.  But  there's  no  particular  pleasure  in 


36  THE  ISLAND 

elbowing  about  among  the  others — the  ones  that 
are,  so  to  speak,  alive.  (I'm  using  all  your  terms. 
It's  simpler.)  Besides,  you  realize  that  when  you're 
dead  (your  term  again,  you  see!)  your  place  is  among 
the  dead.  And  people  keep  coming  to  us — just  as 
you've  come — and  there  are  the  drowned  ships. 
We  have  as  much  fun  getting  them  into  dry  dock  and 
setting  them  afloat  again  as  we  have  in  receiving 
the  drowned  sailors.' 

1  'Were  those  the  ships? '  Amy  put  in  quickly,  and 
he  nodded  at  her. 

'Yes,'  he  said,  'those  were  the  good  drowned 
boats  that  didn't  want  to  go  down  and  are  mighty 
glad  to  get  up  again  and  feel  the  hand  of  man  on 
them,  man  that  made  them.  You  don't  suppose  a 
boat  can't  love  its  creator  do  you?  the  one  that 
shaped  and  guided  her?' 

"'But,'  said  Amy,  'if  all  those  lost  ships  were  on 
the  ocean,  we  couldn't  have  helped  seeing  them  and 
running  into  them.  Or,'  said  she — and  I  can  tell 
you  she  wrinkled  her  eyebrows  at  him.  You  know 
that  way  she  had — 'aren't  they  real  ships,  or  only 
the  souls  of  ships?  Just  as  I  suppose  we're  souls 
now  and  our  bodies  are  off  there  in  the  sea?' 

"She  could  meet  it  all,  without  a  quiver.  I  could 
n't.  I  didn't  want  to  think  of  my  body's  being  out 
there,  fathoms  down.  But  the  Tall  Man  was  smil 
ing  at  her  with  that  look  he  had  for  her  and  not  once 
for  me.  No  wonder! 

'You're  going  too  fast  now,'  he  said.  'I  can't 
help  you.  I  mustn't.  You'll  know  it  all  in  time/ 


THE  ISLAND  37 

"Then  he  turned  suddenly  to  a  green  walk  that 
led  up  to  one  of  the  misty  temples.  I  call  'em  tem 
ples.  What  do  I  know?  I  don't  know  what  they 
were  used  for  ordinarily,  nor  how  they  were  built, 
nor  whether,  if  you  struck  'em,  they  would  hurt 
your  hand.  I  only  know  they  were  outlines,  a 
sort  of  enchanting  outline  that  made  you  contented 
and  pleased  when  you  looked  at  it.  And  a  lot  of 
people  were  going  toward  it — not  our  Artemisia 
crowd,  but  the  others,  those  that  had  met  us  and 
been  kind. 

"'I  told  you  we  are  anxious,'  said  the  Tall  Man. 
4  That's  a  sign  of  it.  It  means  we've  got  to  talk 
things  over.' 

"He  was  moving  away,  as  he  spoke.  I  saw  he 
was  suddenly  in  a  hurry — anxious,  like  the  rest. 

"'Oh,'  said  Amy,  'mayn't  we  come?' 

"He  stopped  and  looked  at  us,  kindly,  but  a  little 
doubtfully. 

"'Why,  yes,'  he  said  then,  'I  think  so.  Nobody 
ever  does  come — so  soon.  But  you're  different. 
At  least,  one  of  you  is.' 

"And  then  I  began  to  understand  it  was  I  he 
meant  when  he  said  maybe  we  couldn't  both  stay 
there,  and  I  held  to  Amy's  hand  and  made  up  my 
mind  I'd  never  let  it  go.  And  she  held  mine  just 
as  tight.  She'd  had  the  same  thought,  you  see,  and 
she  was  determined,  too.  But  she  was  tremendously 
interested — curious,  in  a  darling  kind  of  way — about 
the  Island  and  it  made  her  audacious,  even. 

"'Then  we'll  come,'  she  said  to  him.     'Let  us  go 


38  THE  ISLAND 

along  behind  you,  and  of  course  if  the  others  don't 
like  our  being  there  they'll  say  so.' 

"He  smiled  in  that  indulgent  way  he  had,  and  I 
gathered  from  it  he  knew  if  he  vouched  for  us  it 
would  be  enough  and  that  he  was  somebody  very 
important  in  relation  to  the  others,  and  he  walked 
away  and  we  followed. 

"Well,  we  went  along,  and  when  we  got  inside 
what  I  call  the  temple — and  after  we  were  once 
there  the  walls  didn't  look  like  walls  any  more — it 
was  just  a  large  place, — when  we  were  among  the 
others  we  lost  him  and  then  saw  him  later,  up  on  a 
kind  of  dais  where  they  went  to  speak.  At  least  it 
must  have  been  a  place  higher  than  the  rest  of  the 
temple — there  I  go,  you  see,  calling  it  a  temple! — 
or  else  the  ones  that  spoke  looked  taller  than  the 
rest." 

"Were  they  sitting?"  I  asked  him,  "the  audience, 
I  mean?" 

"I'm  not  sure,"  he  said.  His  voice  sounded 
troubled.  I  could  believe  he  was  finding  it  more  and 
more  disturbing,  as  time  went  on,  to  realize  how  in 
exorably  his  memory  of  the  event  was  losing  its  clear 
edges,  growing  less  distinct.  "I  seem  to  remember 
them  standing.  I  can't  repeat  the  words  of  their 
discussion,  but  I  do  remember  the  sense  of  it.  That 
will  never  leave  me.  They  were  in  a  state  of  anxiety, 
as  he  had  said,  and  trying  to  see  whether  something 
couldn't  be  done.  They  were  all  perfectly  agreed; 
that  wasn't  the  ground  of  discussion.  They  were 
pulling  together  absolutely,  and  the  point  they  were 


THE  ISLAND  89 

after  was  whether  they  couldn't  make  themselves 
known,  as  an  island,  you  see,  a  possession,  to  Eng 
land.  They  were  doing  all  they  could  to  help, 
receiving  the  dead  and  that  kind  of  thing,  and  God 
knows  what  else.  They  may  have  been  fighting 
the  submarines,  for  all  I  know,  with  their  invisible 
fleet.  But  they  wanted  England  to  know  they  were 
there,  safeguarding  when  they  could  and  comforting 
all  the  time.  And  then  it  came  over  me  with  a  great 
rush  that  England  not  only  had  her  daughter  col 
onies,  fighting  for  her,  the  cubs  as  brave  as  the  lion, 
but  she  had  her  invisible  colonies,  too.  They  were 
round  her  like  a  guard  of  not  mere  human  steel, 
but  heavenly  fire.  Amy  saw  it,  and  we  looked  at 
each  other  and  felt  we'd  begun  to  understand  the 
universe  a  little  bit,  not  the  surface  of  things  we'd 
been  stumbling  over  up  to  now. 

"  But  I  had  a  thought  I  didn't  like.  Logic,  reason, 
you  know  what  a  nasty  way  they  have  of  putting  a 
heavy  hand  on  the  curb  of  your  high  horse. 

"'But,'  I  said,  'if  England's  got  invisible  cohorts 
fighting  for  her,  Germany  must  have  the  same  kind. 
And  they'd  be  pretty  formidable,  those  old  scalawags, 
Barbarossa  and  his  horsemen  and  the  whole  gang.' 

" '  I  don't  think  so,'  said  Amy.  '  When  we  die,  we 
see  things  differently.  They  must  have  got  some 
thing  out  of  being  dead,  just  as  we  have,  and  they've 
been  dead  centuries  and  we  only — is  it  weeks  or 
minutes?  I  don't  believe  Kultur  looks  very  attrac 
tive,  even  to  a  German,  if  he's  got  out  of  his  skin  and 
begun  to  look  with  the  eyes  of  his  spirit.  No,  they 


40  THE  ISLAND 

wouldn't  help  Germany.  They'd  see  she  mustn't 
win.  They'd  know  it  would  only  be  prolonging  her 
childish  bluff  and  brutishness.  What  they'd  want 
most  would  be  to  have  her  humbled  so  she'd  see 
she'd  got  to  crawl  up  out  of  her  slime.  But  England 
— well,  you  know  what  you  said  on  shipboard.  That 
no  matter  what  England  had  done  in  the  past,  to 
other  nations  and  her  own  poor,  it  happens  now 
she's  right.9 

"And  as  I  looked  at  Amy  and  saw  how  alive  she 
was,  how  eager,  how  understanding,  how  perfectly 
able  to  weave  her  past  into  the  strange  present  and 
make  them  equally  alive,  my  fear  came  over  me  that 
she  was  to  stay  here  and,  unless  I  was  somehow  let 
to  hocus  fate,  I  was  to  go.  I  hadn't  dropped  her 
hand  and  now  I  clutched  it  tighter  and  drew  her 
away. 

"'Come,'  I  said,  'we  must  find  some  place  of  our 
own.' 

"She  was  still  thinking  about  the  heavenly  co 
horts  fighting  for  their  earthly  mothers,  and  though 
she  didn't  resist  me  she  evidently  went  on  in  that 
same  groove. 

'"Just  think,'  she  said  as  we  went  out  together, 
'what  it  must  be  for  the  dead  Germans,  not  bound, 
as  we  are,  to  a  just  and  wonderful  cause.  They've 
got  to  know  they  can't  help.  It  wouldn't  be  per 
mitted.  They  can  only  pray  and  suffer  shame.' 

"I  didn't  answer.  I  saw  before  us  a  long  alley, 
made  by  slender  trees  that  seemed  to  throw  a  green 
light  across  the  path,  one  to  another,  in  an  enchant  - 


THE  ISLAND  41 

ing  kind  of  way.  The  trees  themselves  were  opaque 
gems  and  the  light  through  them  was  pulsating  and 
clear.  I  wish  I  could  describe  it  to  you.  But  I 
can't™  You'll  see  those  things  sometime.  (So  shall 
I — again.  And  mighty  soon,  too.  I'm  as  sure  of 
that  as  I  am  we're  sitting  here  tonight.  That's  why 
I  take  it  as  I  do — not  having  her,  you  know.)  I 
hurried  Amy  along  the  path  so  fast  we  seemed  to 
skim  the  ground  without  touching  it.  Don't  you 
know  that  dream  we  have  of  floating?  You  just 
give  a  little  push  with  a  tiptoe,  and  you're  above  the 
ground,  willing  yourself  to  go.  And  while  we  hur 
ried,  not  breathlessly,  but  with  a  pleasurable  sen 
sation  as  if  nothing  nicer  could  happen  to  us  than 
wafting  along  a  green  path,  I  had  the  queerest 
sensation  that  the  path  was  ours,  that  nobody'd 
used  it  or  even  seen  it  before.  And  we  came  out  on 
an  open  space  with  trees  round  it — not  slender,  like 
the  path  trees  but  big,  round,  populous,  with  spaces 
in  them  and  coverts  for  a  million  birds.  A  green 
city,  that's  what  each  tree  was,  all  full  of  plots  and 
courts  and  alleys  under  dancing  leaves." 

"Were  there  birds?"  I  asked.  Every  time  he 
stopped  for  a  minute  I  felt  as  if  he  might  actually 
break  the  thread  and  leave  me  lost  on  my  bewildered 
way. 

Again  he  was  perplexed  and  troubled. 

"About  the  birds,"  he  said.  "I've  thought  of 
that.  And  I  can't  be  sure.  I  tell  myself  it  couldn't 
have  been  so  happy  if  there  hadn't  been  birds.  A 
tree  like  a  green  city  and  no  birds  to  live  in  it — that's 


42  THE  ISLAND 

desolation.  I  think  I  heard  them.  Actually  I  do 
think  so.  Only  they  weren't  songs  I  can  remember. 
Except  one.  I've  thought  it  might  have  been  the 
skylark,  not  just  an  English  lark,  you  know,  but 
Shelley's."  He  laughed  a  little  here,  as  if  he  could 
allow  himself  an  occasional  tender  romancing  over 
the  inexhaustible  riches  of  the  place. 

"And  I  did  hear  the  sea,  softly  lapping  on  the 
shore.  Well,  I  made  Amy  sit  down  with  me  and  I 
held  her  hands,  thinking  all  the  time  how  tight  I  must 
cling  to  them  to  keep  something — destiny  or  what 
we  call  life — from  dragging  me  away  from  her.  And 
then  I  told  her  about  my  fear.  She  was  to  stay,  I 
told  her,  and  I  was  to  go.  She  looked  at  me  seriously 
and  I  was  plunged  deeper  and  deeper  in  my  misery 
to  find  she  knew  at  once  it  was  to  be.  But  whereas 
I  was  distracted  she  was  grave  and — different. 
Calm,  perhaps — that  was  it — as  if  she  saw  the  end 
of  things  I  was  only  guessing  out  from  the  beginning. 
But  I  had  my  plan. 

"'Now/  I  said  to  her,  'we're  here  alone.  We've 
escaped  from  them  all,  and  they're  too  busy  to  think 
of  us.  And  this  is  our  place.  We  must  build  us  a 
house  and  live  here — stay  absolutely  by  ourselves, 
so  nobody '11  be  reminded  of  us.' 

"It  won't  do  any  good,'  said  she,  very  grave,  but 
not  unhappy  as  I  was.  And  then  she  laughed  a 
little  as  if  she  liked  me  tremendously  and  wanted  me 
to  have  my  way,  even  for  a  minute  or  two,  to  soften 
things  for  me  afterward  and  she  said, '  Still,  it  won't 
do  any  harm.' 


THE  ISLAND  43 

"Then  all  the  strength  I'd  got  came  up  in  me — I 
don't  know  whether  it  was  will  or  muscle — and  I 
made  up  my  mind  I'd  show  the  Powers  I  was  as 
strong  as  They  were,  and  I  said : 

"'Very  well  then,  we'll  build  our  house.' 

"I  got  up  and  so  did  she,  and  we  went  to  work. 
And  to  this  day  I  don't  know  whether  we  talked 
about  the  house  and  what  sort  it  should  be,  or  how 
we  found  material,  or  whether  we  actually  worked. 
I  seem  to  remember  tools  of  some  sort  and  going 
round  whistling  and  Amy's  singing  and  her  reminding 
me  of  old  jokes  and  our  agreeing  we'd  been  so  silly 
'way  back  before  we  came  here  not  to  have  been 
married  the  first  day  we  met. 

"'For  we  knew  then,'  said  Amy.  'Not  that  it 
makes  any  difference  now.' 

"And  suddenly  the  house  was  built  and  we  stood 
looking  at  it.  And  it  wasn't  walled  with  mist  like 
the  Islanders'  temple,  but  it  was  a  good  deal  like 
some  of  the  old  houses  we'd  seen  and  talked  about 
on  shipboard.  It  was  palpable  to  the  eye  and  the 
touch — oh,  you  never'll  understand  me  here;  I 
can't  express  myself — and  yet  it  was  different.  We 
loved  it.  When  I  looked  at  it  I  forgot  my  fear  and 
Amy  seemed  to  put  aside  her  sad  certainties.  And 
I  got  daring  and  wished  for  the  moon,  and  the  moon 
came.  Do  you  know,  I  never' ve  looked  it  up  to 
see  if  there  was  a  moon  at  that  particular  time  be 
cause  I'd  rather  think  it  was  our  moon,  the  moon  of 
our  thoughts.  And  we  stood  at  a  window,  looking 
at  it — I  must  tell  you  about  that  window,  though, 


44  THE  ISLAND 

before  I  forget.  I'd  wanted  a  'magic  casement,' 
like  Keats's 

opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. 

And,  if  you'll  believe  me,  I  got  it.  Don't  ask  me 
what  it  looked  like.  I  simply  got  it,  that's  all.  And 
we  knew  it  was  that  window  and  no  other.  And  it 
was  while  we  stood  there  looking  at  our  world  that 
she  said  to  me: 

" '  You  like  to  stay  in  the  house,  don't  you?  You'd 
rather  do  it  than  explore  the  Island.' 

"jl  felt  sulky,  just  because  of  my  fear. 

"'Yes,'  I  said.  'It's  our  house.  We'd  better 
stay  in  it — while  we  can.' 

"The  last  words  I  hadn't  meant  to  say.  I  didn't 
like  to  remind  her  of  my  fear. 

"'Yes,'  she  said,  'you  stay  in  the  house  because 
you  think  they  won't  find  us  when  they  want  us. 
But  they  will.' 

"  Then  she  called  me  a  name  I  won't  tell  you.  But 
sometime  I  shall  hear  it. 

"I  didn't  see  why,  if  the  Island  itself  wasn't 
visible  to  passing  ships,  our  house  should  necessarily 
be  visible  to  the  Islanders  themselves.  There  were 
queer  rules  here,  I  told  her.  We  didn't  know  just 
what  would  obtain.  But  all  the  time  I  knew  there 
was  nothing  in  it  and  so  did  she.  She  began  to  talk, 
quietly. 

"'You've  heard  the  sounds,  haven't  you,  even 
when  we're  in  our  house?' 


THE  ISLAND  45 

"  Tve  heard  the  sea,'  I  told  her. 

"I'd  made  up  my  mind  that  was  all  I'd  own  to. 

*  You've  heard  more,'  said  she.  I  could  see  she 
was  terribly  sorry  for  me  now,  not  so  much  for  her 
self  because  she'd  begun  to  learn  the  end  of  things, 
and  besides  she  saw  some  kinds  of  grief  are  of  no  use. 
'We  both  have.  We've  heard  their  music — and 
their  bugles — sometimes  I  think  when  we  heard 
the  bugles  we  ought  to  have  gone.  I  suppose  that 
was  when  more  ships  came  in  and  brought  more — 
dead.' 

"I  believe  then  I  began  to  cry.  Anyway  I  had  a 
feeling  of  breaking  up  and  going  all  to  pieces,  and 
as  we  do  sometimes  in  nightmare  I  began  to  say  the 
same  thing  over  and  over.  'For  God's  sake!'  that 
was  what  I  kept  saying,  and  though  I  never  could 
finish  I  knew  she  understood  perfectly  well  what  I 
was  trying  to  pray.  Not  to  leave  me,  that  was  what 
I  was  praying  to  her,  whatever  they  said  or  did  to 
her,  not  to  leave  me.  And  her  face  began  to  grow 
fainter  and  fainter,  though  she  bent  over  me — I  felt 
I  was  on  my  knees  crying  to  her — she  bent  over  me 
to  give  me  the  sight  of  it  to  the  last.  And  it's  my 
one  best  thing  in  life  now  to  remember  her  hands 
held  mine  tighter  and  tighter  and  wouldn't  let 
them  go.  And  then  there  was  a  great  clanging  in 
my  ears — I  thought  it  was  the  Islanders  summoning 
me  to  tell  me  I'd  got  to  part  from  her,  and  I  began 
to  have  a  queer  pain  and  misery.  And  I  woke  up. 
And  there  were  two  men  I'd  never  seen,  and  I  knew 


46  THE  ISLAND 

instantly  the  worst  had  happened.     I'd  been  rescued 
and  Amy  was  dead." 

"About  the  life-preserver?"  said  I,  because  I 
knew  we  could  never  come  back  to  this  again  and 
that  was  the  most  mysterious  thing  of  all  to  me. 
"I  couldn't  understand — " 

He  got  up  and  shook  himself  a  little,  as  if  he  cast  off 
the  dust  of  old  perplexities. 

"You  never  will,"  he  said.  "You'll  have  to  do 
as  I  do:  believe  it  and  accept  it  and  be  satisfied  not 
to  understand.  The  amount  of  the  matter  was  that 
when  I  got  on  my  feet  I  hunted  out  the  boat  that 
picked  me  up.  I  had  a  feeling  that  among  so  many 
incredible  things  they  might  have  found  Amy,  too, 
and  seen  her  dear  body  later  than  I  did.  But  they 
hadn't.  Only,  just  as  I  was  going  over  the  side,  the 
captain  followed  me,  and  he  said: 

"  'That  was  a  queer  thing  about  your  life-belt.  It 
was  off  the  old  Elsinore.  How'd  you  come  by  it? ' 

"'Why,'  I  said,  'I  didn't  come  by  it.  There 
wasn't  any  time  for  life-belts.' 

"But  you  had  it  on,'  said  he,  'Elsinore,  marked 
plain.  I  commanded  that  ship  once  myself.' 

"'Then  where  is  it?'  said  I. 

"I've  got  it  down  here  below,'  he  said,  and  he 
went  off  to  fetch  it.  But  he  came  back  in  ten  min 
utes  or  so,  and  he  was  more  puzzled  than  I  was.  I'd 
seen  the  Island  fleet,  you  remember.  'It  can't  be 
found,'  said  he,  'high  nor  low.  But  we  shall  come 
on  it.  I'll  send  it  to  you.' 

"But  he  never  did.     I  knew  he  wouldn't.     He's 


THE  ISLAND  47 

written  me  once  or  twice  about  it.  I  believe  it  scares 
him,  rather." 

"But  it  doesn't  scare  you,"  I  ventured. 

"I  should  say  not,"  he  said.  He  laughed  a  little. 
"Some  things  I  know.  Nothing  scares  me  now." 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

IT  is  true  that  the  most  extraordinary  and  exact 
coincidences  happen,  as  if  pieces  in  the  mosaic  of 
life,  made  to  fit  together  in  some  mysterious  fore 
cast  of  destiny,  rush  toward  each  other  and  are 
finally  joined.  The  common  motive  of  brother 
meeting  brother  or  friend  meeting  friend  from  oppos 
ing  ranks  of  a  war  is  a  not  too  crudely  obvious  one. 
It  has  happened  over  and  over  again,  as  if  the  two 
had  been  journeying  toward  each  other  by  intent, 
and  out  of  all  the  millions  of  men  who  accompany 
them,  are  unerringly  accurate  in  their  direction 
and  their  destiny  of  a  poignant  recognition  or  a 
last  sickening  sequel  of  wild  warfare. 

This  story,  told  by  an  American  for  a  time  in  the 
Foreign  Legion  and  then  disabled  and,  by  note 
worthy  privilege,  allowed  to  join  an  observation 
party  in  March  of  this  year,  1917,  is  entirely  true 
according  to  his  psychology.  I  am  ready  to  assert 
it  is  true  also  in  a  definite  sense  made  to  fit  all  out 
ward  facts  as  well. 

"Let  me  go  back,"  he  said,  that  afternoon  when 
I  sat  by  his  bedside  while  he  talked  to  me  and  tried 
to  explain  the  message  he  wanted  to  send  to  a  girl 
in  New  Hampshire.  "You've  got  to  understand 
just  what  my  connection  was  with  Hugo  and  with 
her,  too,  before  the  war  began.  So  I  want  to  tell 

48 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  49 

you  the  whole  business.  That's  not  to  be  repeated 
to  her,  mind  you.  Only  that  I  saw  Hugo,  and  that 
he's — 'safe,'  you  can  tell  her.  But  I  suppose  I 
want,  too,  to  pass  over  what  happened — pass  it 
over  to  somebody  else.  I'm  tired  of  owning  it 
alone  and  shutting  it  up  inside  me:  for  I  don't  know 
whether  it's  a  treasure,  you  see,  or  only  a  strange 
secret.  And  anyway  it's  got  to  be  shut  up,  unless 
you  want  to  write  it  out,  with  a  change  of  name,  so 
that  the  people  playing  the  old  games — buying  and 
selling  and  thinking  the  world  will  last  their  time, 
and  that  going  to  church  once  a  week  and  putting  a 
check  in  the  plate  is  enough  to  ensure  their  communi 
cation  with  the  heavenly  powers — so  they'll  get  to 
wondering  whether  perhaps  after  all  there  isn't 
something  between  God  and  man  that  hasn't  been 
entirely  mapped  out.  And  if  there  is,  whether  they'd 
better  not  explore  a  little  before  they're  called 
on  to  take  the  unknown  country  at  a  dash  and 
perhaps  suffer  terrors  actual  as  hunger  and  thirst. 
For  one  thing  I'm  sure  I've  learned  out  of  my  own 
neck-and-crop  pitch  into  futurity — that  'in  my 
Father's  house  are  many  mansions.'  And  not  all 
of  the  mansions  are  for  the  soul  to  inherit  and  take 
its  ease  in.  Some  of  'em  are  deserts  full  of  torments; 
and  they're  none  the  less  His  mansions.  And  if 
you  ask  me  why  one  man  should  be  singled  out  for 
punishment  when  millions  of  men  have  committed 
the  same  offenses  in  his  company,  I  tell  you  you  don't 
know  where  those  other  millions  are.  For  space — 
the  'mansions' — is  illimitable,  and  every  man  that 


50  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

sins  is  pretty  sure  of  getting  a  lonesome  hell  of  his 
own. 

"Now — Hugo  and  I  were  chums  at  Harvard.  I'd 
never  understood  why  he  was  there;  when  the  rest 
of  us  were  dying  to  get  to  Germany  to  study,  he 
came  from  Germany  here.  His  father  was  back  and 
forth  between  us  and  Berlin,  on  vague  business  never 
quite  defined.  We  assumed  it  was  connected  with 
imports;  but  before  the  war  there  was  no  particular 
curiosity  about  it.  You  won't  have  seen  this, 
because  you  don't  know  his  name;  but  the  other  day 
he  was  proved  guilty  of  hostile  propaganda  and 
indubitable  plotting  at  munition  plants,  and,  accord 
ing  to  the  amiable,  tolerant  habit  of  our  government, 
merely  interned.  But  then,  when  Hugo  and  I  were 
trotting  round  together,  he  was  simply  a  beneficent 
deity,  pocket  full  of  money,  always  ready  to  blow 
it  in  for  theatres  and  dinners,  and  simply  the  best 
comrade  a  set  of  fellows  could  find  in  a  man  of 
middle  age.  He  sang  German  songs  to  admiration, 
and  he  never  took  the  fatherly  pose  of  'you'll  think 
so  when  you're  older.'  He  was  apparently  one 
of  us. 

"When  we  came  out  of  college,  Hugo  and  I,  we 
ran  right  along  in  the  same  groove.  I  wanted  to 
write  things — I've  a  kind  of  a  gift  of  words — and  I 
determined  at  the  same  time  to  be  a  farmer.  Farm 
ing's  in  my  blood.  My  grandfather  was  a  farmer. 
He  could  graft  trees  and  do  all  kinds  of  witch  work 
with  them.  He  anticipated  this  wave  of  growing 
improved  apples  by  a  good  many  years.  While 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  51 

other  people  were  rubbing  along  with  old  apple 
trees  set  out  on  side  hills  where  you  couldn't  culti 
vate  'em  and  close  to  the  stone  wall  where  every 
apple  that  fell  would  get  a  nasty  disfiguring  bruise, 
he  set  out  several  acres  with  healthy  little  trees, 
and  ploughed  and  fertilized  and  thinned  the  fruit, 
and  pruned  and  scraped;  and,  if  you'll  believe  me, 
it  was  that  orchard  that  sent  me  to  college.  And 
better  than  that,  I  inherited  the  apple  passion,  and 
so,  when  I  came  out  of  college,  I  bought  me  a  farm 
up  in  New  Hampshire,  and  settled  down  there  to 
write,  and  incidentally  to  grow  fruit. 

"  And  Hugo  was  with  me.  I  don't  think  he  wanted 
to  be  at  first,  but  his  father  encouraged  it  in  his  big- 
voiced  way,  and  bought  some  adjoining  land  for 
him  and  I've  since  fancied  I  saw  why.  We  weren't 
so  far  from  Canada,  and  I've  guessed  he  wanted 
our  little  acreage  for  a  base.  Also,  Hugo  fell  in 
love  with  Annie  Mills.  So  did  I.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  the  farmer  next  me,  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away,  and  kept  house  for  him,  and  the  first  time 
we  saw  her — coming  home  from  the  woods  she  was, 
with  her  hands  full  of  violets — well,  I'm  pretty  sure 
each  of  us  felt  then  what  we  kept  on  feeling  till  the 
war  gripped  us — and  afterward.  And  when  I  say 
she  was  coming  home  with  her  hands  full  of  violets 
you  mustn't  see  any  Sweet  Lavender  kind  of  girl  in 
a  pink  sunbonnet  and  dialect  on  her  tongue,  ready 
to  be  awed  by  two  college  fellows.  O  Lord!  you 
know,  Annie'd  had  her  course  at  a  mighty  good 
seminary,  and  she  read  her  Greek  for  fun  and  be- 


52  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

cause  she  liked  it;  whereas,  if  you  asked  me  to  trans 
late  at  random,  without  context,  I  should  be  no 
where:  not  even  come  in  by  freight.  So  Hugo, 
having  seen  her,  settled  down  with  me  and  read 
books  on  forestry  and  his  father  encouraged  it,  and 
I  wished  the  devil  would  fly  away  with  him  and  not 
bring  him  back  till  I'd  got  Annie. 

"Yes,  give  me  a  drink,  but  don't  stop  me.  I'm 
going  to  keep  right  on  till  this  story  is  told.  If  I 
get  it  off  my  chest  I  sha'n't  do  so  much  'seeing  things 
at  night.' 

"Annie  was  a  discreet  and  level-headed  little 
person,  but  she  hadn't  any  eyes  for  me.  It  was  all 
Hugo.  Terrible  nice  to  me,  you  understand,  but 
in  a  sort  of  maze  about  him,  hypnotized,  you  know, 
what's  called  being  in  love.  Or,  no.  Sometimes  I 
think  she  wasn't  in  love  yet,  only  on  the  way  to  it. 
And  Hugo's  dad  took  up  his  share  in  the  hypnotizing. 
He  stayed  with  us  from  time  to  time,  and  sang 
German  songs  to  her  and  made  love  in  a  kind  of 
indirect  fashion — nicely,  you  know,  quite  straight 
about  it.  Only,  as  an  older  man  preparing  the  way 
for  Hugo  and  turning  the  world  upside  down  with 
the  romance  of  everything  as  if  he'd  built  a  kind  of 
palace  with  flowers  to  walk  on  and  birds  singing,  for 
Hugo  to  lead  her  into  and  propose  to  her.  Do  you 
get  me?  I  mean  the  whole  atmosphere  of  our  New 
England  neighborhood,  so  far  as  we  three  were  con 
cerned,  was  back  in  some  kind  of  super-civilization 
America  hasn't  a  glimmer  of,  except  through  poetry 
and  pictures,  and  Annie  was  being  asked  indirectly 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  53 

but  in  every  way  possible  to  accept  the  freedom  of 
the  city  in  a  golden  box. 

"Her  father?  Annie's  father?  Oh,  he  didn't 
know  what  was  happening.  He  was  road  commis 
sioner,  and  he  was  sitting  up  nights  figuring  on 
harder  roads  for  the  automobiles,  and  over  the 
motors — how  to  trap  'em  better  for  over-speeding 
and  so  pay  for  the  roads.  And  Annie  was  a  wonder. 
She  kept  her  gait.  Only  I  could  see  her  eyes  grow 
big  and  black  when  she  was  pelted  with  the  whole 
German  Empire,  and  I  had  an  idea  if  Hugo  asked 
her  right  off  the  bat,  she'd  have  to  say  *yes-'  You 
may  think  I  was  a  fool  not  to  ask  her  myself,  but  it 
was  a  fact  T  didn't  dare  to.  I  felt  as  if  I  stood  for 
New  Hampshire  with  her  and  the  kind  of  person 
that  would  turn  into  a  road  commissioner  some  day, 
and  I  felt  as  if  a  joggle  of  the  wheel  might  give  me 
a  chance  to  offer  her  some  little  glamour  myself. 
It's  no  use  saying  I  cherished  any  high-minded 
horseback  determination  to  let  Hugo  have  her 
because  he  was  my  chum.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  If  I 
could  have  shipped  him  off  to  Siam  I  would,  and 
'father'  and  his  German  songs  with  him.  Some  days 
they  got  most  infernally  on  my  nerves,  and  I  cursed 
myself  for  walking  into  the  combination  as  I  had 
or  inviting  it  to  walk  over  me. 

"And  then  the  turn  of  the  wheel  came,  in  August, 
1914,  and  everything  was  different.  In  the  first 
place  father  disappeared,  lock,  stock  and  barrel. 
Whether  he  said  good-by  to  Hugo  I  don't  know.  He 
didn't  say  good-by  to  me,  and  I  rather  resented  the 


54  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

unfriendliness  of  it  and  didn't  ask  about  him.  But 
Hugo  had  letters  from  him,  and  the  post-mark  was 
Canada.  But  straight  off  I  found  out  things  weren't 
the  same  between  Hugo  and  me.  He  got  rather 
strained  and  quiet;  I  can't  tell  you  what  effect  it 
had  after  knowing  him  those  last  years  when  he 
was  always  banging  round  and  whistling  and  singing. 
Now  he  was  mum  as  a  fish.  He  wouldn't  talk  about 
the  war — not  to  me,  though  he  did,  I  found  out,  talk 
to  Annie.  For  she  grew  mum  and  white,  to  the 
same  degree,  and  one  day  when  I  overtook  her  on 
the  path  through  the  Cathedral  Woods  she  asked 
her  question,  right  out  from  the  shoulder.  I'd  gone 
into  the  woods  to  think  things  over,  and  so  had  she, 
and  we  were  both  just  enough  keyed  up  so  she  had 
to  put  her  question. 

"'Arnold,'  said  she,  'what  do  you  think  about 
Belgium? ' 

"It  was  just  after  that  deviltry,  you  see,  while 
we,  the  ones  of  us  that  see  straight,  and  mean  to  act 
straight,  were  almost  out  of  our  minds  with  the 
helpless,  mad  desire  to  do  something,  and  the  others 
— well,  the  others  it's  better,  to  the  end  of  time,  to 
forget  them.  Don't  you  say  so?  What's  the  use  of 
keeping  on  poisoning  our  own  blood  with  the  just 
contempt  we've  got  to  feel  for  'em?  Well,  I  told 
her  what  I  thought,  as  well  as  I  could,  I  don't  know 
in  what  words.  Maybe  I  didn't  choose  'em  for  their 
academic  flavor.  About  that  time  I  was  fed  up 
with  academic  puddling.  And  I  saw  she  thought 
she'd  got  it  hot,  but  maybe  no  more  than  she  ex- 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  55 

pected,  and  the  light,  what  little  there  was  of  it  in 
her  face,  paled  out  and  she  walked  along  with  her 
head  bent. 

"'Yes/  she  said  at  last,  ''that's  the  way  I  feel.' 
And  then  she  lifted  her  head — she's  a  gallant  girl, 
Annie — and  she  said,  as  if  it  might  be  a  kind  of 
challenge  to  me  to  understand  she  identified  herself 
with  him,  'But  Hugo  can't  feel  so.' 

"'Can't  he?'  said  I. 

"I  found  myself  mumbling.  I'd  spent  what  heat 
I  had  on  Belgium. 

" 'No,'  said  she.  ' There  are  all  his  traditions,  you 
see.  He  has  to  be  loyal  to  Germany.'  He's  German 
to  the  backbone. 

"'Well!'  said  I. 

"That  was  literally  all  I  could  say.  I  wanted  to 
ask  her  if  Hugo  wasn't  the  son  of  a  German  who'd 
got  himself  naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and 
whether  he  mightn't  stiffen  his  own  backbone  accord 
ingly.  But  I  didn't.  I  felt  as  if  I'd  lost  them  all, 
Hugo  and  his  father  inevitably,  and  Annie,  because, 
though  she  stood  with  me  about  Belgium,  she  seemed 
to  have  accepted  their  point  of  view,  for  them,  which 
was,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  giving  a  kind  of  intangi 
ble  aid  and  comfort  to  our  spiritual  enemies.  But 
this  I  knew.  If  Hugo  was  even  emotionally  a  citizen 
of  Germany  at  this  crisis — for  that  first  crisis,  you 
know,  was  like  a  great  questioning  fiat  from  a  moral 
judgment  seat — where  did  a  man  stand?  And  he 
that  was  not  for  the  devil  was  against  him — well,  if 
Hugo  was  with  the  devil  as  he  had  been  revealed 


56  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

walking  abroad  under  a  Prussian  helmet — was  he 
to  sit  at  my  table  any  more?  Was  I  to  break  bread 
with  him?  I  didn't  say  another  word  to  Annie  nor 
did  she  to  me,  and  at  the  edge  of  the  woods  I  left  her 
and  turned  back  into  the  Cathedral  aisle.  And,  if 
you  believe  me,  I  stayed  in  the  woods  all  night.  I 
sent  word  to  Hugo  by  a  boy  that  came  up  through 
from  fishing,  not  to  expect  me,  that  I  was  off  trying 
to  find  a  strayed  calf — which  was  absurd,  because 
we  hadn't  any  cattle  pastured  and  Hugo  knew  it. 
But  I  had  an  idea  he  wouldn't  be  enough  interested 
in  my  movements  to  pin  me  down  to  facts.  And 
perhaps  he'd  been  as  uneasy  with  me  as  I  was  with 
him.  And  when  I  did  go  back,  next  morning,  dew- 
soaked  and  cold  and  sort  of  awkward  about  meeting 
him,  he'd  gone,  and  the  housekeeper  told  me  it  was 
for  good.  He'd  gone  to  the  war. 

"'And  it's  for  Germany,'  she  kept  saying.  'Mr. 
Grant,  ain't  it  queer?  he's  goin'  to  fight  for  Ger 
many.' 

"And  I  told  her  it  wasn't  queer — quite  natural, 
for  he  was  a  German.  And  I  waited  for  her  to  tell 
me  he'd  left  me  something,  a  letter,  of  course,  or  if 
not  that,  some  sort  of  message.  But  he  hadn't,  for 
she  didn't  say  another  word,  and  even  before  I  had 
breakfast  I  went  over  the  house  hunting  for  his 
good-by — the  living-room,  his  room,  mine.  Not  a 
word  did  I  find.  He'd  disappeared  just  as  if  his 
father'd  given  him  the  formula. 

"That  day  I  went  to  see  Annie  and  her  face  told 
me  he  hadn't  gone  without  saying  good-by  to  her. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  57 

She  was  as  serious  as  we  are  after  a  sobering  blow, 
not  a  girl  now,  a  woman. 

"I  couldn't  talk  to  her  till  she'd  answered  me  one 
question. 

"'Are  you  engaged  to  him?' 

"I  asked  it  plump  and  she  answered  as  if  it  was 
a  natural  thing  to  ask  and  I'd  every  right  to  an 
answer. 

"'No,'  she  said.  'I  couldn't.  I'm  puzzled.  I 
had  to  think  things  over.  Belgium.' 

"'Yes,'  I  said. 

"And  then  I  asked  how  long  she  was  going  to 
think  things  over,  and  she  said: 

"'I  don't  know.  Till  I  can  stop  being  puzzled, 
I  guess.' 

"'Well,  Annie,'  said  I,  'I'm  going,  too.  Only  I 
shall  fight  on  the  other  side.' 

"And  before  she  could  think  she  put  her  hands 
together  and  the  red  ran  into  her  face  and  she  said : 

" '  Oh,  bless  you !  bless  you !  I  wish  I  could  go,  too.' 
And  then  she  remembered  the  thing  that  was  hurting 
her  so,  and  she  said,  'If  you  see  him,  won't  you  write 
me?' 

"'I  sha'n't  see  him,'  I  said,  'among  ten  million 
Germans.  But  I'll  write  you  anyway.' 

"And  the  next  day  I  was  off,  up  through  Canada 
and  over  to  the  other  side.  The  queer  part  of  it 
was  I  hadn't  thought  of  going  till  that  minute  facing 
Annie's  eyes.  It  seemed  as  if  she'd  made  me  go. 
And  maybe  Hugo  had,  too.  It  was  as  if  he'd  chal 
lenged  me  and  I'd  got  to  make  sure  he  didn't  throw 


58  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

his  little  weight  in  for  Germany  without  my  throwing 
mine  on  the  other  side. 

"Well,  I'll  skip  all  my  dodges  to  get  over,  and  what 
happened  to  me  there  and  how  I  got  my  first  wound — 
I've  been  sort  of  unlucky,  you  know — and  then  my 
good  luck  of  getting  a  little  pull,  enough  to  put  me 
into  the  observation  party  that  followed  along  after 
the  French  when  they  banged  the  Germans  into  their 
'strategic  retreat'  in  March  of  this  year.  And  you 
know  what  those  same  Germans  that  are  bambooz 
ling  Russia  now  with  their  peace  terms  did  when 
they  retreated:  how  they  blew  up  villages  and 
poisoned  wells  and  wrecked  houses  and  destroyed 
fruit  trees.  Now  that  last  is  what  I'm  coming  to — 
the  destruction  of  the  trees.  I  can  forgive  'em  my 
game  leg,  even  if  it  never  straightens  out,  and  I  can 
fancy  in  minutes  I  have  sometimes  when  the  sun's 
shining  and  it  looks  as  if  we'd  got  'em  on  the  run 
and  somebody  reminds  me  'all's  right  with  the 
world'  that  God  may  make  a  try  at  forgiving  'em 
for  the  houses  and  the  gardens  and  the  women — 
but  I  can't  go  into  that.  Honestly  I  haven't  the 
nerve.  Sometimes  when  it  comes  over  me — the 
women  I  know  about,  the  ghosts  of  children  I've 
seen  with  my  own  eyes — well,  I'm  afraid  I  shall  just 
go  daffy  lying  here,  with  sheer  mad.  But — and 
this  is  what  I've  been  coming  to  all  this  time — so 
long  as  I  keep  my  brain  to  invent  curses  and  my 
tongue  to  utter  'em,  I  never'll  forgive  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  trees.  If  my  ticket  for  a  comfortable 
hereafter  depended  on  it  I  couldn't.  'Put  me  any- 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  59 

where  you  like,  Lord/  I  should  have  to  say,  'but 
that's  a  new  crime.  That's  arboricide.  You 
didn't  mention  it  in  the  Decalogue  but  I've  got  it 
down  in  mine.  And  it  proves  there's  more  than  one 
unpardonable  sin  among  men.' 

"Maybe  it's  my  grandfather  coming  out  in  me. 
Anyway  it's  as  strong  as  I  am.  Why,  do  you  know 
what  a  tree  represents,  how  slow  it  grows,  what  a 
push  and  urge  it  puts  into  its  resurrection  every 
spring  and  how  it  goes  to  sleep  so  pretty  and  stands 
there  for  all  the  winds  of  winter  to  buffet  it  and  the 
rain  to  lash  it  in  the  face?  And  there  it  is  in  the 
spring  ready  again  if  you  give  it  half  a  chance, 
gnarled  maybe  and  brown  and  old,  but  with  a  bridal 
bloom  no  girl  could  ever  equal — not  even  Annie. 
It's  kind,  a  fruit  tree  is,  it's  beneficent,  always 
offering  you  something,  and  even  if  you  neglect  it 
offering  you  a  little  still.  As  if  it  said,  'I'm  poor, 
but  I'll  share  with  you.'  Why,  the  relation  between 
mankind  and  its  fruit  trees  ought  to  be  a  never- 
ending  alliance — protection  on  our  part,  generosity, 
kindness.  Because  on  theirs  they're  always  ready 
with  an  answer.  Well,  that's  how  I  feel  about  fruit 
trees,  and  when  I  saw  them  by  the  hundred  sawed 
two-thirds  through  and  then  broken  down,  split, 
mangled,  murdered,  how  do  you  think  I  felt?  And 
let  me  stop  right  here  and  say  I  found  in  a  newspaper 
I  got  hold  of  the  other  day  what  a  German  military 
high  joss  said  about  their  retreat: 

"'Before  our  new  positions  runs,  like  a  gigantic 
ribbon,  an  empire  of  death.' 


60  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

"That  describes  it  better  than  I  could  if  I  went 
into  a  day's  talk  of  mine  craters  and  gaping  holes 
and  what  had  been  fruit  trees  with  the  life-blood  in 
them  standing  there,  bare,  jagged  spikes,  pointing 
up  to  heaven.  That  idea  rather  got  hold  of  me  as 
I  stared  at  them.  There  seemed  to  be  something 
significant  in  it.  They  were  pointing  up  to  heaven. 

"Well,  we  moved  along,  we  of  the  observation 
party,  and  we  found  not  only  destruction  of  all  the 
mechanism  of  life  but  the  dead.  Here  and  there 
were  a  few  dead  Boches.  And  one  man,  lying  with 
two  others  quite  safely  off  on  their  journey  into  some 
other  planet,  was  a  slender  fellow,  face  downward, 
his  hand  stretched  limp  toward  one  of  the  others 
as  if  he  had  tried  to  touch  him,  get  some  comfort 
or  give  it,  God  knows  which.  And  I  knew  that 
hand.  I  can't  say  now  whether  I  actually  did  know 
it,  the  outward  form  of  it,  or  whether  some  inside 
sense  told  me.  But  I  knew.  It  was  Hugo's,  and 
I  slid  off  my  horse  and  told  the  others  I'd  overtake 
them,  and  I  turned  him  over  as  gently  as  I  could 
and  his  eyes  opened  and  met  mine — the  strangest 
look,  that  was,  as  if  he  were  relieved  to  see  me  and 
yet,  too,  as  if  he  were  too  far  away  to  have  it  count — 
and  he  said  my  name,  and  that  one  word  that  haunts 
the  battlefield  like  a  litany  of  torture:  'Water.' 
But  with  it  he  was  gone,  slipped  away  out  of  his 
body  as  if  he'd  been  ready  and  only  waiting  for 
me  to  give  him  somehow  his  release,  and  I  laid  him 
down  as  easy  as  I  could.  Strange  isn't  it  how  we 
feel  they  can  keep  on  being  hurt,  though  we  know 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  61 

their  bodies  are — as  they  are?  And  then  I  remem 
bered  I  must  see  if  he  had  anything  I  could  send  back 
to  Annie,  and  as  I  put  out  my  hand  to  him  again 
something  obliterated  me  and  I'd  got  the  earth  be 
hind  me,  too. 

"Now  you  know  how  it  was,  how  an  apparently 
dead  Boche  at  my  left  had  come  to  himself  and  potted 
me,  and  you  know  of  course  I  wasn't  dead  because 
I'm  here  now.  But  I  did  have  a  narrow  squeak  of 
it,  as  they'd  tell  you  in  hospital  if  they  had  time  to 
remember  also-rans  like  me.  So  far  as  this  world 
goes,  I  was  dead.  I  had  gone  out  of  my  body  and 
into  some  other  state  of  existence,  just  as  sure's 
you're  here  in  this.  I  had  a  sensation  of  lightness, 
of  rising,  and  of  all  my  faculties  being  keener  than 
they'd  ever  been.  I  seemed  to  be  thinking  of  a 
dozen  things  at  once  and  with  a  clearness,  a  power, 
that  was  even  in  itself  a  mode  of  action.  Don't 
you  see?  I  might  not  have  my  hands  or  feet  or 
eyes  to  work  with  or  a  heart  to  beat,  but  I  was  per 
fectly  conscious  that  I  could  do  things.  And  I 
thought  of  Annie  with  a  sort  of  regret  that  yet  wasn't 
sad,  even  though  now  she'd  lost  us  both  and  there 
was  nobody  but  the  road  commissioner  to  stand 
between  her  and  life — yes,  I  actually  saw  the  road 
commissioner  as  I  lay  there  on  the  field  of  France, 
with  his  pepper  and  salt  suit  and  the  gold  tooth  I 
always  suspected  him  of  being  proud  of — and  above 
every  stratum  of  feeling  was  the  certainty  that  I'd 
got  to  hang  on  to  Hugo  till  we  could  sit  down  and 
talk  it  over  md  sowehow  Arrange  things  for  her. 


62  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

And  though  I  had  that  sensation  of  lightness,  I  was 
apparently  there  on  the  ground,  only  we  were  stand 
ing  and  we  faced  each  other  and  I  was  the  first  to 
speak. 

"'Well,  old  chap,'  said  I,  'how  goes  it?' 

"And  we  seemed  to  shake  hands,  only  I  didn't  feel 
the  grip  of  his;  but  I  knew  he  was  tremendously  glad 
to  see  me,  and  his  voice  sounded  perfectly  familiar 
when  he  answered. 

"'I  suppose,'  said  he,  'we're  dead.' 

"That  was  it.  We  were  dead.  It  had  been  so 
far  from  my  thoughts  as  anything  I  was  likely  to 
suffer,  that  particular  day,  that  I  actually  hadn't 
known  it.  He  began  to  peer  round  in  exactly  the 
way  he  used  to  when  we  were  alive,  and  I  laughed. 
Being  dead  wasn't  going  to  be  so  bad  if  we  were 
sufficiently  ourselves  to  chum  together  in  the  old 
way.  Though  all  the  time  I  was  conscious  of  some 
thing  that  tried  to  draw  me  away  from  him  or  him 
away  from  me.  That's  a  commonplace,  you  know. 
I've  heard  lots  of  chaps  speak  of  it  that  got  knocked 
out  and  then  had  to  come  back.  It  was  so  strong 
that  I  felt  breathless  as  I  combated  it,  and  gasped 
once  or  twice  to  get  my  breath,  because  I'd  even 
thought  of  a  little  joke. 

'"Evidently  we're  to  be  separated,'  I  said.  'I'm 
going  to  heaven.  So  you  can  draw  your  own  con 
clusions.' 

"How  did  it  look  round  us?  I  forgot — I  hadn't 
told  you.  Well,  it  simply  didn't  look  any  way  at 
all,  any  more  than  it  does  at  sea  when  the  fogs  shut 


THE  EMPIRE   OF  DEATH  63 

down  and  the  horn  is  groaning.  And  there  wasn't 
any  horn,  not  a  sound  in  that  eerie  place  unless  we 
chose  to  speak.  And  Hugo  did  speak,  and  with  such 
a  relief  in  his  voice  that  I  knew  he'd  been  as  lost  as  I. 

"'The  fog  is  lifting,'  he  said. 

"It  was,  or  dispersing  itself,  thinner  at  first,  then 
in  little  separate  spirals  like  pipe  smoke,  and  then, 
with  a  rush,  it  went.  And  we  were  in  the  most 
unbelievable  place  you  ever  saw — with  your  mind's 
eye,  that  is — for  it  was  like  no  other  place  mapped 
out  or  charted.  It  was  a  place  as  big — I  can't  tell 
you  how  big,  for  it  seemed  illimitable.  And  that 
you  must  take  my  word  for,  because  you  can't  see 
how  we  could  get  the  idea  of  tremendous  space 
when  there  were  so  many  trees  to  break  it.  But 
they  didn't  break  it.  They  just  gave  the  impression 
of  more  and  more  miles  and  more  and  more  trees. 

* '  Come,'  said  I, '  we've  got  to  get  somewhere  out 
of  this.' 

"I  spoke  with  the  more  decision  because,  mind 
you,  I  was  determined  not  to  leave  Hugo,  and  I  was 
conscious  all  the  time  of  the  force  that  was  trying 
to  pull  me  away  from  him. 

4  *  Come,'  it  seemed  to  say,  'his  way  lies  here. 
Yours  doesn't.     Break  off  and  leave  him.' 

"And  because  I  had  an  inward  certainty  that  the 
phrase  about  leaving  him  might  have  been  rounded 
out  *  leave  him  to  his  fate '  I  was  all  the  more  deter 
mined  not  to  go.  It  was  partly  because  I  was  fond 
of  him.  The  old  days  were  pulling  at  me.  And 
then  I  was  morally  bound  not  to  fail  Annie.  Some- 


64  THE  EMPIRE   OF  DEATH 

how  or  other  I'd  got  to  give  him  back  to  her,  if  we 
weren't  both  in  here  for  keeps.  I  wanted  Annie 
myself  precisely  as  much  as  I  ever  had,  but  in  that 
place  something — I  don't  know  what  it  was — fell 
away  from  me  and  I  was  ready  to  stand  back  and 
let  the  other  man  walk  over  me  to  his  own.  If  he 
could:  but  there  was  something  in  the  place  that 
put  a  spell  on  you  and  decreed  you  should  walk 
only  its  way.  And  when  I  said  that  last  I  told  you, 
that  we'd  got  to  get  out,  he  agreed  with  me,  though 
I  don't  know  whether  he  spoke,  and  we  plunged 
into  the  undergrowth  among  the  trees  in  a  direction 
that  seemed  to  lead  to  a  kind  of  path.  The  air  was 
green,  oozy,  damp,  not  exactly  the  air  you  find  in 
tropical  forests,  but  as  if  there  was  intention  in  it. 
You'll  think  I'm  daffy,  but  it  wasn't  as  if  the  trees 
were  luxuriating  naturally  in  that  wet  medium,  but 
as  if  it  were  something  they  controlled  and  were 
breathing  it  out  to  choke  and  slay. 

"And  when  my  breath  and  my  heart  failed  me  and 
I  stopped  to  wipe  my  dripping  face,  I  looked  round 
me  and  what  I  saw,  though  it  ought  to  have  been 
beautiful  to  me,  was  terrifying  in  the  extreme. 
For  they  were  fruit  trees  in  full  bloom.  They  were 
low-growing,  so  that  their  laced  branches  made  a 
roof  I  could  have  touched  by  stretching  up  my  arm, 
and  their  brown  twigs  were  heavy  with  crowded 
petals,  pink  and  white,  and  with  hardly  a  leaf  to 
break  their  blended  continuity.  And  the  fragrance 
of  them,  the  heaviness  of  it  that  sickened  you  with 
its  very  sweetness  and  lay  in  your  lungs  like  a  drug! 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  65 

I  looked  at  Hugo  and  I  saw  he  was  frightened.  That 
is  what  he  must  have  seen  in  me,  pale  fear  reflected 
each  to  each. 

"'Trees!'  I  said.  My  voice  sounded  faint  and 
unfamiliar  to  me.  It  might  have  been  'death'  I 
said  or  'murder'  or  any  of  those  words  weighted 
with  an  awful  inheritance  from  countless  tragedies. 
(Am  I  talking  rot?  Maybe.  You  see  I've  thought 
for  ever  so  long  how  I'd  write  this  out  if  I  could. 
But  I  can't.  I  can't.  I  lived  it,  once  for  all.  That 
was  my  part.  Anything  I  could  say  would  sound 
like  a  penny  whistle.)  And  Hugo,  in  the  same  kind 
of  voice  echoed  back '  Trees ! '  and  there  we  stood  star 
ing,  as  if  there  was  no  spell  we  could  think  of  like  that 
same  word.  And  in  a  minute  Hugo  looked  across 
me  to  one  side  where  the  light  was  growing  a  trifle 
brighter,  and  he  gave  a  cry  I  never  shall  forget  so 
long  as  I  live.  It  was  like  a  woman's  scream,  and 
a  man's  voice  in  a  woman's  scream  is  something  to 
remember. 

'"What's  that?'  said  he,  'that  over  there—' 
Then  he  stopped  and  cried  out  again  before  he  went 
on.  'It's  like  the  road  from  Roye.' 

"It  was  then  I  began  to  understand,  and  I  cried 
out  at  him: 

'"Were  you  one  of  the  devils  that  cut  down  the 
trees?' 

"And  all  the  time  my  eyes,  like  his,  were  on  that 
further  space  where  there  were  no  blossoms  and  no 
interlacing  boughs :  only  maimed  and  mangled  torsos 
such  as  I  had  seen  that  day.  And  then  Hugo  began 


66  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

to  cry  out  in  an  awful  abandonment,  sobbing,  too, 
as  if  he  were  beseeching  something — as  if  he  found 
himself  helpless  and  the  most  terrific  power  that 
could  be  imagined  stood  over  him  with  its  most 
terrific  weapon,  and  it  was  raised  to  fall.  I  never 
before  realized  what  it  is  to  see  a  man  in  every 
last  nerve  and  sinew  of  him  mad  with  fear.  He 
began  to  beg,  and  justify  himself  all  in  one. 

:'Why,'  he  said,  'what's  a  tree?  If  it  were  a 
man — they've  all  been  killing  men — the  French 
and  English,  look  at  them!  they've  killed  me.  And 
I've  killed,  too.  I  know  I  have.  But  you  don't 
punish  me  for  that.  You  punish  me  for  sawing 
down  a  tree  or  two.  I  had  to,  don't  you  see?  It 
was  orders,  and  common  sense,  too.  What's  the 
crime  of  sawing  down  a  tree?' 

"And  I  understood.  He  was  in  hell,  a  hell  of 
trees,  and  I  was  with  him  because  I  wouldn't  let 
him  go.  For  all  the  time,  mind  you,  the  power  that 
forbade  me  to  stay  with  him  was  tugging  at  me  and 
beating  in  my  ears,  'Give  him  up,  give  him  up.' 
And  I  wouldn't  give  him  up,  and  gripped  tighter  on 
his  hand.  By  this  time  he  had  gone  to  pieces,  over 
his  entire  body,  and  fallen  to  his  knees  and  still  I 
held  his  hand  and  tried  to  drag  him  up  by  it.  And 
he  did  get  up  and  turned  about  obliquely  toward  the 
naked  torsos  of  the  ruined  wood  and  took  a  step  mis 
erably  and  then  another  and  I  took  mine  with  him. 

"'I've  got  to  go,'  he  kept  saying,  and  now  he 
sobbed  without  any  restraint  or  shame.  'That's 
the  way  I've  got  to  go.' 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH  67 

"And  as  we  stumbled  on  in  that  thick  sweet  air — 
oh,  a  million  apple  trees  in  bloom  shut  up  like  con 
centrated  poison  in  a  flask  couldn't  have  been 
stronger — I  understood  that  the  trees  were  unfriendly 
to  us.  That  broke  my  heart.  Trees!  the  patient, 
generous  friend  of  man — they  were  unfriendly.  I 
felt  as  if  God  Himself  had  forsaken  me.  And  an 
other  delicately  exquisite  bit  of  torture  piled  up  on 
this  last.  The  trees  were  moving,  too.  They  ran 
beside  us,  they  pursued  us,  they  waved  their  branches 
— it  was  their  own  volition,  mind  you — there  was 
no  wind — they  outran  us  and  beckoned  us  on,  they 
pelted  us  with  blooms  that  hurt  like  ice-pellets  and 
suffocated  like  wool.  It  seemed  millions  of  years 
that  we  were  running — for  we  ran  fast  now,  as  if 
we  spurned  the  undergrowth,  ran  through  the  air — 
but  never,  never  could  we  outrun  the  racing  trees. 
And  one  fear  in  me  was  stronger  than  all  other  fears — 
would  they,  somehow,  at  last  speak  in  some  arboreal 
fashion?  Would  they  charge  Hugo  with  his  crime 
and  me  for  my  unfriendliness  to  them  and  all  my 
inherited  past  in  staying  with  him?  And  finally 
the  maimed  victims  neared  us,  as  if  they  might  be 
running  to  meet  us,  and  Hugo  spoke  with  that  small 
sobbing  breath  he  had: 

"'It  is  the  road  from  Roye.  That's  the  way  I've 
got  to  go.' 

"How  far  had  he  got  to  go?  And  where  would 
the  road  of  torment  lead  him  at  the  last?  And  now 
he  stopped  short  and  looked  at  me.  In  that  minute, 
from  that  look  of  his,  I  knew  he  loved  me,  that  he 


68  THE  EMPIRE  OF  DEATH 

saw  what  I'd  been  trying  to  do.  The  trees  stopped, 
too.  I  had  a  foolish  fancy  they  were  giving  him  an 
instant's  breathing  space  just  for  that  look,  that 
look  of  human  kindliness  and  sacrifice.  And  he 
spoke  precisely  as  he  might  have  spoken  in  those 
first  days  in  New  Hampshire  or  in  Cambridge,  when 
we  sat  with  a  table  between  us  and  smoked  and  re 
arranged  the  world. 

" '  Good-by,  old  chap,'  said  he.     «  Good-by.' 
"But  I'm  with  you,'  I  called  out  to  him  as  if 
there' d  already  begun  to  be  widening  space  between 
us.     'I  won't  go.' 

"And  with  a  quick  pull,  as  if  he'd  got  to  do  it  that 
way  or  not  at  all,  because  I'd  grip  the  harder  if  he 
did  it  otherwise,  he  snatched  his  hand  out  of  mine, 
and  it  was  dark  before  me,  and  something  kind — oh 
you  don't  know  what  beneficent  destinies  there  are 
till  you've  been  where  Hugo  and  I  were — it  seemed 
to  lift  me  and  carry  me  to  where  there  was  breath 
and  light. 

"And  to  go  back  a  minute,  to  the  kind  destinies. 
You  know  the  Furies  have  another  name.  And  I 
can't  help  thinking  that  when  they'd  got  done  scourg 
ing  him  through  his  wilderness  of  murdered  trees, 
he'd  see  their  other  faces  and  call  that  name,  and 
they'd  answer  him  and  smile." 

"And  you,"  said  I.     "You  were  in  hospital?" 
"Yes.     I  was  in  hospital.    And  you  tell  Annie 
I  saw  Hugo,  saw  him  die,  quickly,  without  pain, 
and  that — yes,  you  say  it! — that  he's  safe." 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

ON  an  early  June  morning  in  London,  Grace 
Harwich  stood  by  a  pillar  box  at  the  West  End.  She 
had  dropped  in  an  enclosure,  and  she  now  put  out  her 
hand  again  to  the  slit.  This  time  it  was  for  another 
envelope,  somewhat  thickish  and  blue-gray,  and  she 
tucked  the  corner  in  with  a  delicate  concern  that 
might  have  led  you  to  think  she  was  an  awkward  per 
son  aware  of  her  disabilities  and  patiently  trying  to  get 
the  best  of  them.  You  would  have  said:  "There is  a 
most  charming  young  lady,  evidently,  from  her  dress 
and  her  carriage,  an  American,  mailing  her  letters 
home." 

But  Gilbert  Mills,  the  young  man  in  the  limousine 
that  had  been  trailing  her  and  now  as  softly  stopped, 
was  keeping  an  eye  on  the  envelope,  not  in  any 
cursory  way,  but  as  if  it  held  the  news  he  feared  or 
longed  for.  He  stepped  out  of  the  car,  took  one 
stride  that  brought  him  to  her  elbow  before  she  had 
time  to  do  more  than  wince,  and  his  hand  fell  on  her 
wrist. 

"You  little  sneak!"  said  he. 

Grace  looked  at  him  in  a  perfect  silence.  She  had 
not  been  quick  enough  to  poke  the  incriminating 
oblong  in,  and  the  hand  upon  her  wrist  had  with 
drawn  it  from  the  box.  Unconsciously  her  thumb 
and  finger  grasped  it  tighter,  and  a  viscid  fluid 


70      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

trailed  out  of  the  envelope  and  made  a  little 
meandering  rivulet  on  the  front  of  her  gray  dress, 
dripping  thence  to  her  perfect  shoe.  She  had  trained 
rigorously  for  this  adventure,  and  the  first  article 
of  her  code  had  been  that  she  must  never  scream. 
So  she  stood  looking,  with  a  grave  and  questioning 
composure,  out  of  violet-blue  eyes,  at  Gilbert  who, 
having  drawn  his  brows  together  and  set  his  square 
jaw  as  if  he  meant  to  subjugate  by  every  masculine 
device  of  facial  power,  also  looked  at  her.  He  was 
an  American, — her  own  countryman, — and  she  knew 
he  loved  her  so  completely  that  she  made  no  doubt 
of  his  unfailing  concurrence  in  her  aims.  As  she 
had  once  expressed  it  to  him,  he  really  did  see  things 
her  way.  Then  she  had  elaborated  somewhat.  For 
she  knew,  as  he  did,  that  he  wasn't  merely,  in  an 
acquiescence  to  her  charm  or  an  involuntary  sex- 
homage  for  the  purpose  of  making  it  his  own,  seeing 
her  way.  They  actually  did  look  upon  present  life 
and  the  larger  future  with  the  same  demands.  They 
were  safe  in  knowing  they  were  to  be  man  and  wife, 
although  that  finished  conclusion  in  the  mind  of 
each  had  not  yet  been  shared.  Gilbert  had  only 
just  come  into  his  luck,  and  until  he  had  he  would 
not  ask,  and  Grace  had  waited  with  the  utmost  tran 
quillity,  being  only  a  little  over  twenty  and  having 
adventurous  things  to  occupy  her. 

Gilbert  still  held  her  wrist  and  answered  the  clear 
interrogation  of  her  eyes  with  that  savage  and  dom 
inating  stare.  But  it  did  not  dominate.  She  merely 
inquired,  in  a  conversational  tone: 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      71 

"What  are  you  grabbing  me  for?" 

"What,"  said  Gilbert,  "are  you  doing  to  the  inside 
of  that  pillar  box?  " 

A  faint  smile  lifted  the  corners  of  her  mouth.  It 
was  the  lightest  little  signal  from  the  woman  in  her 
to  the  man  in  him,  and  Gilbert  saw  it  and  approved. 

"Why,  you  know,"  said  she.  "The  same  thing 
we've  done  before." 

"I  knew  They'd  been  doing  it,"  said  he,  with  a 
comprehensive  jerk  of  the  head,  meant  to  indicate 
the  entire  female  contingent  of  the  British  empire. 
"But  what  have  you  got  to  do  with  it?  " 

Her  unflinching  eyes  held  obvious  reproach. 

"Why,  Gil,"  said  she,  "what  did  Lafayette  have 
to  do  with  it  when  he  came  over  to  us  and  fought  our 
battles?" 

Gilbert  lifted  one  foot  and  set  it  down  with  the 
emphasis  of  a  stamp.  That  was  all  he  could  do  as  a 
natural  expression  of  feeling,  because  he  had  begun  to 
remember  his  own  plan  of  campaign.  The  sight  of 
an  American  girl  playing  rough  house  with  an  English 
pillar  box  had  put  it  temporarily  out  of  his  head,  and 
now  he  called  upon  himself  to  be  not  so  much  man  as 
woman  in  guile  and  firmness  fit  to  cope  with  the 
young  desperado  before  him.  She  raised  her  brows 
with  a  look  at  once  mandatory  and  pleading. 

"You're  holding  my  wrist  awfully  tight,"  said  she. 

But  he  didn't  loose  it. 

"Grace,"  said  he,  "I've  got  a  message  for  you." 

"For  me?  From  uncle?  Oh,  piffle!  I  sha'n't 
go  home.  Auntie  cabled  the  minute  she  found  Mrs, 


72       THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

Irvington  had  got  to  leave  me  unchaperoned.  But  I 
wouldn't  go.  Of  course  I  wouldn't.  Do  you  think 
I'm  likely  to  quit  my  English  sisters  in  bondage 
when  I  could — " 

"When  you  could  put  molasses — or  what  is  the 
infernal  stuff? — on  your  skirt?  Well,  whatever  it  is, 
so  long  as  you  could  stick  up  love  letters  and  checks 
and  make  butter-slides  down  Asquith's  stairs  and 
hide  gooseberry  tarts  in  his  bed  and  play  the  devil 
generally?" 

He  had,  since  he  left  the  University  at  least,  been 
leaning  on  the  well-founded  conviction  that  he  was 
a  clever  young  man,  as  clever  as  need  be,  even  at  this 
time  of  competitive  scrambling  and  sophomoric 
recipes  for  the  way  it  is  "done  " ;  but  now  he  bit  his  lip 
in  a  savage  self-reproach.  He  was  not  being  nearly 
so  clever  as  he  had  intended.  Grace  had  the  ad 
vantage  of  having  taken  her  limitations  into  account 
and  steadily  allowing  for  them.  He  hadn't  realized 
he  had  any  limitations  at  all. 

"But  Gil,"  said  she  with  the  same  mild  dignity, 
though  a  slight  twitching  of  the  brow  was  meant  to 
remind  him  that  her  wrist  did  indeed  hurt  her  in 
creasingly,  "we  are  simply  convincing  the  nation  that 
we  are  a  power  in  it." 

"What's  the  matter  with  staying  at  home  and 
convincing  your  own  nation?"  said  Gilbert.  "I 
don't  mean  by  butter-slides  and  stealing  knockers — " 

"The  need  is  greater  here,"  she  said  gravely. 
"You  really  do  hurt  me  very  much." 

Somehow  now  it  seemed  as  if  the  hurt  referred  not 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      73 

only  to  the  appealing  wrist  but  to  the  discovery  that 
he  did  not  see  things  as  she  did.  She  seemed  to 
break  out,  at  one  uncalculated  bound,  from  the  en 
closure  of  her  determined  action. 

"O  Gil,"  said  she  meltingly,  "I  thought  you  were 
one  of  us." 

And  he  was  melted,  chiefly  because  he  saw  this 
was  not  artifice.  She  was  indeed  hurt  to  the  soul  to 
suspect  a  flaw  in  the  oneness  of  their  aims. 

"I  am,"  said  he.  "If  you  mean  votes  for  women, 
of  course  I'm  with  you.  Do  you  suppose  I'd  go  back 
on  mother  and  grandmother?  to  say  nothing  of  you 
and  the  trend  of  things.  Didn't  I  march  in  that 
infernal  procession,  and  didn't  I  help  you  put  up 
balloons  on  Palm  Beach?  Well,  I  should  say!  I've 
disgraced  myself  plenty,  to  prove  it." 

"  Thank  you,  Gil,"  said  she  faintly.  "  You've  an  aw 
ful  grip,  haven't  you?  Is  that  Treherne  in  the  car?" 

She  was  indicating  the  leather-colored  chauffeur 
who  sat  with  his  gaze  set  discreetly  forward,  waiting 
in  a  perfect  stolidity,  yet  still,  even  to  the  casual  gaze, 
with  an  air  of  tense  readiness,  as  if  he  needed  only  the 
first  syllable  of  the  word  to  "let  her  out"  and  cover 
the  distance  from  Land's  End  to  John  o*  Groat's. 
The  still  presence  of  Treherne  and  the  certainty  of 
his  readiness  brought  Gilbert  with  a  shock  to  a  recog 
nition  of  the  way  he  was  fumbling  his  own  job.  He 
summoned  to  his  face  a  beautiful  smile.  He  did  it 
with  the  feeling  of  signaling  wildly  for  reinforcements, 
and  was  grateful  to  his  muscles  when  they  answered 
him. 


74      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

"  Grace,"  said  he,  "  I'm  all  there.  I'm  simply  glad 
to  see  you.  It's  made  me  daffy.  Had  to  take  it  out 
in  kidding  you.  Now  I'm  in  dead  earnest.  I've 
got  a  message  for  you." 

"Auntie?"  she  asked,  now  with  a  faint  concern. 
"Nothing's  happened?" 

"No,  not  auntie.  I've  had  a  conference  with  two 
of  your  leaders,  Hang  it,  Grace!  I'm  not  going  to 
mention  names,  even  at  this  hour,  in  the  open  street. 
Jump  into  the  car  and  we'll  tool  round  a  little  and 
I'll  tell  you  about  it  there." 

"Surely,"  said  she;  and  then  he  did  open  his  hand 
and  free  the  ill-used  wrist.  She  looked  down  at  it 
ruefully  and  gave  it  a  rub  with  the  other  hand. 
But  she  did  not  intermit  her  delicate  grasp  of  the 
envelope. 

"  Here,"  said  Gilbert,  "give  me  that."  He  plucked 
it  from  her,  did  it  up  in  the  morning  paper  Tre- 
herne  respectfully  proffered,  and  tossed  it  into  the 
car.  "Let  the  devilish  thing  leak  there  all  it  wants 
to." 

Grace  put  her  foot,  in  its  slightly  sticky  shoe,  in 
after  it,  and  gave  her  pretty  hop  of  pleasurable  ex 
citement  to  the  seat.  Gilbert  knew  that  spring. 
It  always  meant,  "We're  off,"  and  caught  him  in 
the  throat  because  it  seemed  to  indicate  a  longer 
journey  to  the  peal  of  bells.  They  were  seated  now, 
and  the  car,  as  if  Treherne  had  whispered  the  one 
magic  word,  shot  forward,  gliding  on  glass. 

"He  knows,"  said  Gilbert.  He  had  taken  out  his 
handkerchief  and  was  rubbing  at  her  skirt  in  a  frown- 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      75 

ing  care.  "Look  what  you've  done  to  your  pretty 
dress!" 

She  laughed,  a  little  burst  of  pleasure  like  the  top 
most  drops  of  a  fountain  where  they  are  colored  by 
the  sun. 

"  Now  tell,"  she  said.  "  You  went  to  headquarters 
here.  What  for?  You  had  my  address." 

"I  went  for  news,"  said  Gilbert.  "Don't  forget 
I've  got  my  own  paper  now.  I  really  intended  to  ask 
for  a  set  of  articles  on  the  situation,  and  I  wanted  a 
prominent  person  to  do  them.  And  then,  because 
I  was  an  American,  she  spoke  of  other  Americans, 
and  you  especially." 

"Gil!    What  did  she  say?" 

"Why,  there's  but  one  thing  she  could  say.  She 
thought  your  Votes-for- Women  shower  in  Saint 
Paul's  an  admirable  coup." 

"Yes,"  said  Grace  modestly,  "it  was  rather  well 
managed,  I  think  myself." 

She  sat  forward  in  her  seat  and  gazed  at  the  road 
running  so  hard  to  meet  them.  Gilbert  knew  that 
look  of  high  excitement.  She  was  happy,  and  Tre- 
herne  was  speeding.  For  a  time  she  had  not  noticed 
that,  but  now  the  motion  madness  touched  her 
brain,  and  she  turned  to  Gilbert.  There  was  no 
apprehension  in  her  face:  merely  wonder. 

** Well,"  said  she,  "we're  going  some." 

Gilbert  apparently  didn't  hear. 

"So  she  asked  me,"  he  continued,  "if  I  thought 
you  were  game  for  a  big  job." 

"She  did?    Oh,  that's  tremendous!    That's  the 


76      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

most  amazing  compliment  I  ever  had  in  all  my 
life." 

Gilbert  remembered  a  few  he  had  handed  her, 
colossal  pieces  of  sterling  value,  he  had  thought,  and 
swallowed. 

"She  asked  me,"  he  continued  in  a  rush,  "if  a 
certain  person — we'll  mention  no  names — " 

"But  we  could,"  said  she,  wide-eyed,  "here  in  the 
car.  Treherne  won't  listen." 

"It's  a  good  precaution,"  said  Gilbert  firmly, 
"to  mention  no  names  anywhere,  even  if  you're  alone 
at  midday  on  an  open  prairie.  It's  an  excellent 
habit.  It  gets  you  into  the  way  of  being  all  there." 

"  You're  right,"  said  she.     "  Go  on." 

"She  asked  me  if  a  certain  person  now  in  France  in 
hiding — " 

"  Oh ! "  screamed  Grace.     "  Is  she  there?  " 

Gilbert  nodded. 

"If  that  person  decided  to  charter  a  boat  and  come 
over  and  land  in  Cornwall — " 

"Like  Boney!"  Her  eyes  ran  over  with  wild 
light.  She  looked  like  youth  and  hope  incarnate  on 
its  brave  adventure.  "Like  the  invading  Kaiser. 
But  she  can't  land  except  incog.  She  can't.  There 
are  a  thousand  eyes  out,  and  a  million  regulations 
got  up  for  German  Willie.  They'd  spot  her  in  an 
instant." 

"That's  the  point,"  said  Gilbert.  "She's  not 
going  to  be  spotted.  She's  coming  to  a  little  Cornish 
port,  to  lie  off  the  shore  and  signal.  And  we're  going 
out  at  midnight,  you  and  I  and  Treherne,  in  a  sail- 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      77 

boat,  and  bring  her  in.  And  the  news  will  filter 
round  through  Cornwall — Treherne  sees  to  that — 
and  the  Cornish  women  are  all  primed  to  rally  to  the 
standard,  and  by  George!  you'll  break  every  window 
in  Cornwall." 

Grace  had  turned  upon  him,  her  face  a  bright  mask 
of  eager  wonder. 

"I  never  heard  of  anything  so  absolutely  magnifi 
cent  in  all  my  life,"  she  said.  "But  why  does  she 
take  me?" 

"Because  the  whole  adventure  is  to  be  made  as 
spectacular  as  possible.  Think  how  the  women  of 
Paris  marched  to  Versailles.  Wouldn't  it  have  been 
still  more  dramatic  then  if  they  had  had  a  leader  in  a 
woman  of  another  country — a  woman  who  simply 
had  to  come  into  it  because  their  wrongs  were  so 
unspeakable?  Same  reason  that  our  fugitive  comes 
over  and  lands  in  a  little  boat  when  she  might  dis 
guise  herself  and  go  to  any  port.  The  adventure! 
Consider  the  adventure !  That  delicate  woman  dares 
to  land  at  midnight,  like  smuggled  goods,  and  an 
American  girl  meets  her  and  leads  the  forces  on  to 
Victory." 

Grace  threaded  her  hands  together  in  her  lap  and 
strained  them  while  the  knuckles  blanched.  She  was 
ecstatically  serious  now,  like  a  sacrificial  victim  who 
believes  in  the  gods  that  slaughter  him.  And  Tre 
herne  was  speeding.  Gilbert  pulled  out  his  letter 
case  and  drew  a  paper  from  it. 

"Here,"  said  he,  "read  your  orders.  Her  signa 
ture!" 


78      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

Grace  took  the  paper  and  spread  it  before  her  daz 
zled  eyes.  It  was  laconic,  to  the  extent  of  five  terse 
lines,  and  it  was  signed  by  the  name  of  her  loved 
leader.  She  reverently  folded  it. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "it's  her  signature.  But  Gil, 
how  fast  we're  going!" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Gilbert.  His  tone  conveyed  a 
hollow  nonchalance.  "We're  outside  London.  In 
fact,  we're  on  the  road  to  Guilford.  That's  a  part 
of  it."  She  had  accepted  his  authority,  and  that, 
•while  it  moved  him  warmly,  brought  also  its  prick  of 
helpless  self-reproach.  "  Yes,"  said  he, "  we're  on  the 
road  to  Cornwall." 

Grace  rose  in  her  seat  with  the  surprise  of  it,  but 
the  motion,  gliding  as  it  was,  threw  her  back  again. 
It  was  not  so  much,  indeed,  the  motion,  as  the  swift 
vision  of  the  road  running  to  meet  her  and  being  ex 
tinguished  as  it  came.  "Sit  still,"  the  road  seemed 
to  say.  "You  and  I  are  in  the  hands  of  a  greater 
than  we.  It  is  my  lot  to  run  to  you  and  be  cast  be 
hind;  it  is  yours  to  leave  me  lying  there  like  a  dis 
carded  ribbon."  Then,  sitting,  she  did  cry  out: 

"I  can't  go  to  Cornwall  like  this." 

"Not  when  you've  got  your  marching  orders?" 
inquired  Gilbert  sternly.  "What  kind  of  soldiers 
are  you  women  anyway?" 

She  plucked  up  a  doubting  spirit. 

"I've  got  to  have  some  clothes." 

"Your  clothes  are  all  right.  I  saw  Marie  this 
morning  and  she  gave  me  a  suitcase.  It's  behind 
there." 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      79 

"My  Marie?" 

"Your  maid." 

"While  I  was  out?" 

"While  you  were  putting  molasses  in  the  pillar 
box." 

"But  why  not  have  consulted  me?" 

"You  weren't  there,  I  tell  you.  You  were  gluing 
up  the  correspondence  of  the  British  Empire  and  the 
world." 

"Why  not  have  telephoned  in  advance?" 

"Now  see  here,  Grace,"  said  Gilbert,  "if  you're 
going  to  take  orders,  you  can't  question  'em.  You're 
talking  too  much.  She — you  know  whom  I  mean — " 

Grace  nodded.     It  was  her  loved  leader. 

"She  has  given  me  a  perfectly  clear  plan  of  ac 
tion.  I  may  not  agree  with  it.  I  may  not  see  why 
the  deuce  she  should  be  so  much  of  a  martinet." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Grace.  Her  loyalty  had  been 
woven  without  the  break  of  a  thread.  "  It  has  to  be. 
Think  of  the  thousands  she's  in  command  of.  I  see 
perfectly." 

"Very  well  then."  He  blinked  his  eyes  two  or 
three  times,  as  if  the  relief  of  that  were  almost  too 
unexpected  to  be  borne.  "  Then  I've  only  to  tell  you 
that  I'm  carrying  out  instructions  to  the  letter. 
You  and  I  are  to  drive  like  the  devil  to  Penreath." 

"  Why,"  said  Grace,  "that's  where  your  cottage  is." 

"Yes.  I  haven't  been  there  this  summer,  but 
it's  in  order  waiting  for  us." 

"And  wasn't  it  Penreath  where  you  got  Treherne?  " 

"Yes.    Treherne's  sister  is  in  the  cottage  now. 


80       THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

She'll  give  us  plain  food  and  act  as  your  maid  in  a 
way  while  you're  there." 

"Is  she,"  Grace  asked  with  a  pretty  simplicity  that 
challenged  him  to  be  as  direct  with  her,  "is  she  an 
older  woman — a  widow  or  anything?" 

"No,"  said  Gilbert,  with  robust  imperviousness. 
"No,  Wenna's  never  been  married.  She's  about 
nineteen." 

"But  Gil,"  said  she,  "we  can't  stay  there  together, 
you  and  I,  with  Treherne  and  that  girl.  Auntie'd 
raise  the  roof." 

"Great  Csesar!"  said  Gilbert,  now  meeting  her 
glance  with  an  impact  of  amazement  equal  to  her 
own,  "you  don't  mean  to  tell  me  you  can  stick  up 
letter-boxes  and  heckle  the  Prime  Minister  of  Eng 
land  and  then  cringe  before  the  out- worn  conventions 
of  the  past?" 

Gilbert  sat  the  straighter  after  he  had  said  that. 
He  thought  it  rather  good.  And  so  did  she. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  owned  humbly.  "I  was  only 
thinking  of  auntie." 

"I  wonder  if  Lafayette  thought  of  auntie  when  he 
set  sail  for  America?"  inquired  Gilbert  caustically; 
and  she  owned  that  she  supposed  not. 

Now  that  she  fairly  knew  her  road  and  the  adven 
ture  unrolled  itself,  a  responsive  excitement  took 
possession  of  her.  She  sat  straight  and  sniffed  the 
air.  Gilbert  thought  she  sat  as  buoyantly  as  if  she 
might  spurn  the  flying  car  and  take  to  wings.  He 
had  never  loved  his  car  so  well,  valiant  dear  thing 
without  fault  or  flaw,  as  if  it  had  pledged  itself  to  that 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT       81 

day's  run.  Yet  throughout  he  felt  he  was  denying 
Grace  the  pleasures  of  the  road,  delights  her  eyes 
besought  him  for.  As  they  slipped  through  Win 
chester,  she  recalled  to  him  that  other  summer  when 
he  and  she,  bulwarked  by  auntie,  had  eaten  straw 
berries  in  the  Itchin  meadows;  but  though  she  knew 
his  mind  was  one  with  hers,  he  would  not  stop.  In 
the  middle  of  the  day  they  ate  delicious  things  from 
the  hamper,  and  Treherne,  accepting  his  sandwiches 
as  if  they  were  cartridges  for  another  round,  stoked 
himself  hurriedly  and  drove  on.  Grace  had  caught 
the  infection  of  it  now.  The  madness  of  speed  ran  in 
her  nerves. 

She  hardly  spoke,  and  when  the  air  changed  to  the 
softness  off  the  moors  and  then  the  tang  of  salt,  she 
breathed  it  in  as  if  to  hearten  her  for  the  predestined 
act.  She  looked  very  serious  and,  to  Gilbert,  beau 
tiful.  She  had  taken  off  her  hat,  and  her  thick 
light  hair  lay  disordered  above  her  brows.  Through 
the  aura  of  the  coming  quest  she  was  more  the  woman 
than  the  girl.  This  grave  reflectiveness,  new  in  her 
face,  was  maternal  even,  and  brought  deep  thoughts 
to  birth  in  him.  When  the  coolness  of  the  afternoon 
came  on,  he  put  a  fur  coat  round  her,  and  she  re 
ceived  it  with  a  smile.  She  had  done,  he  saw,  with 
questioning.  She  had  accepted  her  appointed  task, 
and  with  it  the  inevitable  mystery. 

It  was  damp  and  dark  when  they  ran  along  Cornish 
lanes  and  stopped  at  a  cottage  set  by  itself  in  space. 
The  windows  were  alight,  and  Wenna,  sweet  as  pink 
thrift,  stood  in  the  door,  shading  a  candle  with  a 


82      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

careful  hand.  Grace,  under  the  braided  spell  of  air 
and  speed  and  mystery,  smiled  at  the  girl  as  if  they 
had  been  old  friends. 

"O  Wenna,"  she  said  drowsily,  out  of  the  narcot 
ism  of  that  windy  rush,  "just  hear  the  sea!" 

Then  Wenna  brought  food  to  a  dim  fragrant  cham 
ber,  and  Grace  ate  and  hurried  into  the  white  bed 
by  the  latticed  window  to  the  east. 

She  slept  sweetly,  and  when  she  woke  late  in  the 
morning,  lay  for  a  time  and  loved  the  air  of  Cornwall 
on  her  cheek.  The  cottage  awoke  presently  to  the 
sound  of  Wenna,  who  brought  salt  water,  and  Grace, 
uprising,  knotted  her  long  hair  and  asked  for  a  se 
cluded  pool  where  she  could  dip.  Wenna  decisively 
said  no.  There  was  no  pool,  and  Mr.  Mills  had  sent 
up  this  bucket  quite  freshly  filled  by  himself,  for  a 
sponge.  He  was  waiting  breakfast  in  the  garden. 
Grace  made  a  quick  toilet  and  at  the  end  looked  in 
the  glass,  approving.  Here  was  rich  color  and  noble 
line.  She  looked  as  fit  and  splendid  as  she  felt. 
Her  loved  leader  had  done  well  to  summon  her. 
Whatever  the  task  demanded,  she  had  for  it  the  mad 
devotion,  the  muscle  and  the  nerve.  Just  here  she 
went  to  the  window,  and  found  that  although  the  air 
came  in  buoyantly,  it  was  through  latticed  iron. 
The  glazed  window  opened  inward.  The  diamonds 
were  firm.  She  shook  them — for  no  reason — and 
then  smiled.  She  was  balking,  it  seemed,  at  the 
very  thought  of  bars. 

In  the  room  below — a  room  all  sweet  Cornish  air 
through  iron-latticed  panes — Wenna  was  waiting. 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      83 

4Tvrhis  way,  miss,"  said  Wenna. 

She  indicated  an  open  door,  and  through  this 
Grace  walked  into  a  garden  where  Gilbert  met  her. 
She  looked  at  him  and  found  him,  with  that  vital 
throb  of  pleasure  in  him  responsive  to  her  own  im 
perious  youth,  as  fit  and  splendid  as  the  girl  that  met 
her  from  the  glass.  Then  she  looked  at  the  garden. 
This  was  a  little  paradise  shut  in  by  a  high  brick 
wall;  it  had  flagged  walks  through  bright  luxuriance, 
and  in  a  shady  corner  a  round  table  with  the  break 
fast  things.  Grace  opened  her  mouth  to  commend  it 
all,  but  she  said,  out  of  a  desultory  wonder  at  the 
bottom  of  her  mind: 

"  Gil,  aren't  your  windows  queer?  " 

"  Queer ?    They're  all  right." 

"They're  barred.  The  pattern's  in  diamonds, 
but  they're  perfectly  tight.  Burglar-proof — is  that 
it?" 

"Oh,"  said  Gilbert,  "so  they  are.  We'll  take  a 
look  at  'em,  after  breakfast,  when  we're  fortified." 

Wenna  came  then  with  a  tray,  and  Treherne  with 
another.  It  was  an  admirable  breakfast,  suited  to 
hungry  youth.  When  it  was  over,  Grace,  exhilarated 
by  the  day,  the  comfort  of  a  well-used  body,  and  the 
man's  enhancing  presence,  looked  at  him  across  the 
table  and  smiled  in  a  way  to  indicate  her  readiness. 

"Now,"  said  she. 

Gilbert  looked  suddenly  haggard  and  very  grave. 
He  folded  his  napkin  seriously,  the  motion  of  one 
gaining  time,  and  dumped  it,  as  if  it  represented  a 
conclusion. 


84       THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

"After  they  take  these  things,"  he  said.  He 
seemed  to  crave  that  slight  delay. 

Treherne  presently  cleared  the  table,  and  then 
Gilbert,  as  if  he  had  been  waiting  only  to  lean  his 
arm  upon  it,  began,  tapping  slightly  with  his  fingers: 

"I've  been  lying  to  you." 

Now  for  a  long  minute  there  was  nothing  but  the 
rote  of  the  sea  and  the  delicate  insistence  of  the 
breeze,  less  a  whisper  than  a  touch.  Grace  stared  at 
him. 

"That  note  of  instructions,"  he  said.  "It  wasn't 
from  her  at  all." 

"Not  from  her?" 

"No." 

"Her  name  was  signed." 

"I  signed  it." 

"You — forged  her  name?" 

"Yes,"  said  Gilbert.  He  was  answering  her  ques 
tions  in  a  leaden  quiet,  as  if  they  were  what  he  had 
expected,  in  some  form,  and  he  had  to  go  through  with 
the  heavy  task. 

"Gil,"  said  she,  "will  you  explain  yourself." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  he  at  once.  "Shall  I  do  it  as  it 
comes,  or  will  you  ask  me  questions?" 

"I  haven't  any  questions,"  she  said,  as  grave  as  he. 
"I'm  too  puzzled." 

"It  goes  back,"  he  said,  "to  what  you've  been  do 
ing  here  in  England.  I've  kept  pretty  accurate  track 
of  you  ever  since  you  wrote  me  you  were  a  militant. 
When  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer,  I  came  over. 
And  here  I  am." 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT       85 

She  looked  really  alarmed  now.  A  spark  had 
come  into  her  eyes,  and  her  anxious  face  besought 
him. 

"Gil,"  she  said,  "don't  tell  me  you've  gone  back 
on  suffrage." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  he,  "I  couldn't.  I  should  if  I  were 
an  Englishman,  of  course;  that  is,  I  should  be  mighty 
near  it.  But  for  our  women — oh,  no,  I've  not 
changed." 

"Then  what  is  it?  Is  it  because  you  don't  like  me 
to  do  things  that  are — conspicuous?" 

Gilbert  looked  up  at  her  now,  brightening  in  a 
whimsical  response. 

"You've  always  been  conspicuous,  dear,"  he  said. 
"There's  nothing  else  visible  when  you're  round. 
But  now  you've  sunk  into  the  criminal  class,  you  see, 
the  conspicuousness  isn't  because  you're  so  charming. 
It's  because  you're — conspicuous." 

"Gilbert,"  said  she,  "do  you  want  to  know  what 
I  think?  You're  crazy." 

" No,"  said  he,  "I'm  not.     I'm  simply  worried." 

"About  me?" 

"All  of  you.  You  chiefly,  of  course,  because  I 
thought  I  was  going  to  marry  you." 

"  Well,  but — "  She  stopped  so  short  on  the  word 
that  he  knew  she  was  about  to  add,  "Aren't  you?" 
and  that  he  could  not  answer. 

"You're  discouraging  me  frightfully,"  he  said, 
"all  of  you.  Don't  you  see  what  you're  proving? 
You've  reverted.  You've  gone  back  to  the  oldest 
type  of  all,  the  woman  that  cries  until  she  gets  it, 


86      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

that  won't  let  any  peace  settle  on  the  house  until 
she  is  given  her  way.  The  individual  hysteria  of 
the  spoiled  child  has  culminated  in  the  hysteria  of 
a  class.  That  type  used  to  say  to  its  husband  or  its 
lover,  'I'll  cry  all  night  if  you  don't  back  down.' 
That's  what  you're  saying  in  concert  to  the  English 
nation." 

"Gilbert,"  said  she,  "do  you  mean  to  tell  me  you 
don't  think  it's  of  infinite  importance  for  us  to  have 
the  vote?" 

Gilbert  answered  wearily. 

"I  think  it's  of  infinite  importance  for  you  to  be 
civilized  enough  to  deserve  the  vote  and  then  to 
have  it.  But  I  shouldn't  admit  any  woman  to  a 
finger  in  the  pie  who  would  go  out  and  stick  up  letter 
boxes  and  call  it  a  Holy  War.  I  should  be  afraid 
to.  As  soon  as  she  doesn't  get  her  measures  passed, 
what  is  she  going  to  do?  She's  going  to  say,  'Sisters, 
here's  another  call  to  smash  things.  Come  on.' ' 

"It's  war.     Don't  you  know  it's  war? " 

"Oh,  no,  it  isn't,"  said  Gilbert  dolefully.  "I've 
tried  to  make  myself  think  so,  but  I  can't.  War  is 
training  yourself  to  be  the  best  man  and  going  out 
and  fighting  like  a  man.  It  isn't  sneaking  round 
destroying  private  property." 

"But  we  let  ourselves  be  caught."  Her  cheeks 
were  scarlet  now.  He  glanced  up  at  her  and  thought 
he  would  not  willingly  do  it  again.  She  seemed 
literally  to  blaze.  He  might  take  fire  himself  at  her 
fine  passion.  "We  glory  in  getting  caught." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "and  then  you  don't  take  your 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT       87 

punishment  like  men.  You  stop  eating  and  call  it 
sport." 

"Am  I  to  be  shut  up  here  in  Penreath?"  she  in 
quired,  in  a  tone  of  ominous  composure. 

"For  a  while." 

"Is  that  why  the  windows  are  barred?  " 

"Yes.    That's  why." 

"Is  that  why  you've  built  a  brick  wall  round  the 
garden?  I  notice  the  bricks  are  new." 

"Yes.    That's  why." 

"Have  Wenna  and  her  brother  been  corrupted?" 

"They  won't  help  you." 

"How  long  is  this  state  of  things  to  last?" 

"Until  we  have  come  to  terms." 

"Until  you  have  made  me  promise  things?" 

"Until  we  mutually  decide  on  your  future  course, 
and  what  our  relations  are  to  be." 

She  was  silent.  He  did  not  look  at  her,  but  he  was 
aware  that  she  was  deliberating  on  her  next  move,  as 
a  captive  might  study  a  long  time  on  the  quick  turn 
that  should  free  her  wrists. 

"What  are  your  terms?"  she  inquired  finally,  in  a 
perfectly  unmoved  voice.  He  saw  she  had  called 
upon  her  emergency  training,  and  he  admired  her 
for  the  speed  and  coolness  of  her  tactics. 

"What  I  should  like  to  do,"  he  said,  in  an  attempt 
at  similar  composure,  "is  to  have  you  marry  me, 
after  whatever  formality  of  residence  and  special 
license  they  require,  and  sail  with  me  for  home." 

"Oh!"  Her  voice  took  on  something  of  an  edge 
here,  and  he  did  wince,  "I  fancied  from  some- 


88      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

thing  you  said,  a  minute  ago,  that  I'd  ceased  to  be 
eligible." 

"Of  course,"  said  he,  avoiding  the  edge  and  feeling 
a  droll  relief  that  it  really  had  not  cut  him  badly, 
"that  would  be  after  we  had  come  to  terms.  You 
would  have  agreed  with  me  that  the  only  road  to 
eligibility  for  marriage  to  any  man  would  be  through 
returning  to  the  old  code  of  private  honor." 

"Gil,"  she  flashed,  with  a  touch  of  temper  very 
pretty  and  beguiling,  "you  must  have  been  a 
long  time  getting  this  up.  You're  talking  like  a 
book." 

If  he  knew  himself  caught,  he  did  not  show  it. 

"You  see,"  he  continued,  "I've  some  tremendously 
keen  ideas  on  marriage.  You  know  what  they  are. 
And  I  shouldn't  marry  a  woman  who  was  a  criminal, 
or  who  could  be  incited  by  even  the  most  under 
standable  form  of  hysteria  to  criminal  acts." 

She  got  up  and  made  him  a  low  courtesy.  Wenna, 
watching  incidentally  while  she  did  her  kitchen  work, 
almost  broke  a  dish. 

"I  shall  try,"  said  Grace,  "to  bear  my  rejection 
with  fortitude." 

"  Don't  be  a  silly.     Sit  down,  dear." 

She  obeyed  him  because  she  was  too  curious  to  go. 
Besides,  she  liked  it.  The  instinct  of  battle  ran 
thrillingly  through  her,  and  the  question  where  it 
was  to  end  was  nothing  to  the  charm  of  its  still 
continuing. 

"If  we  were  savages  on  an  island,"  said  Gilbert, 
"I  don't  suppose  I  should  mind  your  indulging  your 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT       89 

instincts  once  in  a  while.  I  might  indulge  my  own 
and  hit  you  over  the  head  with  a  cocoanut.  But  in 
Salem!  I  couldn't  live  in  Salem  with  a  wife  out  of 
the  aboriginal  past.  I  couldn't  practice  law  knowing 
I  might  go  home  any  noon  and  find  her  and  the  cook 
and  the  housemaid  all  breaking  the  furniture  to 
gether." 

"Don't  chaff,"  she  said,  frowning.  "We  are  talk 
ing  about  serious  matters." 

"I  mean  it,"  said  Gilbert.  "If  you  cut  down  the 
cook's  wages,  the  cook,  if  she's  got  a  saltspoon  of 
logic  in  her  nut,  will  hack  your  furniture.  For  she'll 
remember  you  were  the  celebrated  Lafayette  Grace 
who,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1913,  hacked  into  Eng 
land.  And  if  I  don't  vote  as  my  wife  wants  me  to, 
my  militant  wife  will  cut  up  my  cravats  and  dint  my 
razors  and  starve  herself.  I'm  not  being  funny, 
Grace.  I  mean  it.  You  are  the  only  girl  in  the 
world  for  me.  I'd  rather  marry  you  than  own  a  foot 
ball  team.  But  unless  you  get  back  your  sense  of 
honor,  I'm  afraid  to." 

While  the  warmest  of  his  declarations  had  caressed 
her  she  had  leaned  toward  him,  lips  apart,  eyes 
misty,  ingenuously  expectant.  But  he  did  not  look 
at  her.  She  collected  herself  and  spoke  reflectively. 

"  Sense  of  honor !  Who  lied  to  me,  to  trick  me  into 
coming  here?" 

"Oh,  I  did,"  he  said.  "Deliberately.  You're 
outside  the  line,  you  know.  You've  been  sneaking. 
I  had  to  sneak  to  catch  you." 

She  deliberated  a  moment.    Then, — 


90      THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

"You  don't  like  our  methods,"  she  said. 

"I  utterly  repudiate  them,"  said  he,  "just  as  I 
repudiate  the  noble  sabotage  of  the  working-man. 
You're  all  of  a  piece." 

"Your  father  was  a  soldier,  Gil,"  she  softly  re 
minded  him.  "You  wouldn't  be,  would  you? 
Don't  believe  in  war?" 

"By  George,  I  do,"  he  said.  "There's  something 
mighty  fine  in  a  man's  saying  'I  believe  in  this  thing 
so  much  I'll  die  for  it.'  But  that's  not  putting  mar 
malade  in  Asquith's  boots." 

"Do  you  believe  in  strikes?" 

"Once  in  a  dog's  age." 

"Very  well.  The  nature  of  the  cause  determines 
the  form  of  strike.  Now  I  give  you  notice  that, 
from  this  minute,  I'm  going  on  strike." 

"Hunger?" 

"Yes." 

"I  foresaw  that.  So  I  ordered  a  good  breakfast. 
It  was  all  the  start  I  could  give  you." 

Remembering  three  eggs  apiece,  she  frowned* 

"And,"  he  continued,  "I'm  forced  to  tell  you  again 
that  the  woman  who  does  that  is  no  man.  Still, 
I  supposed  you'd  do  it.  I'd  thought  it  out.  And  I 
thought  I'd  fast  as  long  as  you  did." 

"Ah!"  she  breathed.     She  liked  the  clash  of  wills. 

"That  was  my  first  thought.  Then  I  said  to  my 
self,  'I  won't  be  such  an  ass.  I'll  serve  three  excel 
lent  meals  a  day.  If  she  refuses  to  eat  them,  it's  at 
her  own  risk.' ' 

She  rose. 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      91 

"May  I  ask  again,"  she  said,  with  some  ceremony, 
"how  long  I  am  to  be  detained  here?" 

He  hesitated.  At  length,  "I  can't  go  into  that," 
he  said. 

She  knitted  her  brows  and  studied  him.  "There's 
something  behind  this,"  she  avowed. 

"There  is,"  he  lightly  owned.  "The  whole  mili 
tant  movement." 

"You've  found  out!"  she  cried,  so  stridently  that 
Wenna  ran  again  to  look. 

"Yes,"  said  he  gravely,  "I've  found  out." 

"You  know  what  is  going  to  be  done  within  the 
week." 

"Yes,  I  know." 

"And  you've  told." 

"No,  I  haven't  told— yet.  But  by  God!  you're 
not  going  to  be  in  it." 

She  was  breathing  hard. 

"  Gil,"  she  said, "  what  would  make  you  let  me  go?  " 

He  looked  up  at  her.  She  saw,  with  a  shock  of 
terror  lest  it  was  not  to  concern  her  any  more,  that 
his  face,  in  its  stern  sincerity,  was  beautiful. 

"Your  word  of  honor,"  he  said.  "I'd  still  take  it 
in  spite  of  the  things  you've  done.  Your  word  of 
honor  that  you'll  stop  short — and  fight  fair." 

"Have  men,"  she  challenged  him  passionately, 
"have  men  fought  fair?" 

"Not  often." 

"Look  at  the  Great  Powers  when  they  want  an 
inch  of  land.  Do  they  fight  fair?  " 

"No.    But    you,    Grace — you    fight    fair.     I'm 


92       THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

with  you.  I'll  help  you  fight.  You'd  have  cut  me 
when  I  came  on  here  for  the  games  that  time,  if  I'd 
sneaked  it  by  a  hair.  Why,  girl,  you  haven't  for 
gotten  'the  game'?" 

Their  eyes  were  encountering  in  a  scrutiny  made  of 
passionate  memory  and  dying  hope. 

"Give  me  your  word,"  he  pleaded. 

Then  there  was  another  pause  while  they  felt  the 
breeze  and  heard  the  sea,  and  both  weighed  to  the 
full  the  poignant  cruelty  of  the  sunlit  day  that  has 
not  a  tear  to  drop  for  youth  and  love  in  ruins. 

"I  can't,  Gil,"  she  said;  but  in  mercy  to  them 
both  she  said  it  gently.  She  walked  into  the  house 
and  up  to  her  own  room,  and  when  Wenna  tapped 
there  at  luncheon  time,  the  door  was  locked. 

The  siege  lasted  three  days.  To  the  four  in  the 
cottage,  though  they  could  exchange  no  words  about 
it,  it  was  man's  siege  of  woman's  heart.  Wenna,  as 
if  she  suffered  not  only  for  the  moment  and  these  two 
lovers,  but  for  her  whole  sex,  tragically  paled.  Three 
times  a  day  she  carried  up  food  prepared  with  an  ex 
cess  of  daintiness,  the  trays  even,  at  length,  decked 
with  flowers;  this  might  have  had  a  sacrificial  look 
though  Wenna  meant  the  flowers  also  to  implore. 
She  also  appeared  at  odd  moments  with  tea.  Every 
body,  Wenna  thought,  had  to  have  a  cup  of  tea.  It 
was  the  universal  fluid. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  day  she  found  the  door  ajar, 
and  though  there  was  no  answer  to  her  knock,  went 
in.  The  room  was  in  beautiful  order;  Grace  was 
refusing  service  in  the  house  of  her  enemies,  and  she 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT       93 

sat  by  the  window,  her  arms  outstretched  on  the 
arms  of  the  chair,  her  hands  hanging  in  pale  beauty. 
Wenna  ran,  dropped  at  her  feet  and  cried.  But 
though  Grace  did  not  notice  her  except  by  a  touch  of 
the  white  fingers  on  her  pretty  hair,  it  was  not  from 
any  coldness.  She  was  thinking  her  own  thoughts, 
and  Wenna  was  no  more  than  a  mote  in  that  big  sea. 

The  outer  beauty  of  the  days  had  been  unbear 
able,  taken  with  the  ache  of  her  own  heart.  Even 
the  scent  from  the  kind  garden  sickened  her.  Down 
there  striding  through  its  bloom  or  even  at  the  stair 
foot,  listening  day  and  night  in  anguish  equal  to  her 
own,  was  her  lover,  made  by  the  strange  sad  chance 
of  time  her  enemy.  The  creature  who  longed  to 
fight  for  her  was  warring  against  her.  The  being 
she  should  foster,  she  was  denying  the  comfort  of  her 
breast.  The  immemorial  alliance  of  the  two  who 
needed  each  other  so  inexorably  had  been  turned  into 
warfare,  by  the  age-long  ignorance  of  both,  and  the 
man  was  driving  the  woman  into  the  wilderness,  and 
the  woman's  milk  was  poisoning  the  men-children 
it  should  nourish. 

For  a  time  she  blamed  him  in  his  own  person. 
Then,  as  hunger  clarified  the  inner  workshop  of  her 
brain,  and  her  soul  seemed  to  rise  and  float  above  the 
body  and  look  understandingly  upon  its  trials,  she 
thought  of  him  tenderly  as  condemned  to  suffer 
with  her  in  the  rush  of  time.  They  were  no  longer 
light-hearted  man  and  maid  meeting  in  the  rose- 
garden  of  their  pure  desire.  Her  life  seemed  to  her 
now  but  the  breath  blown  out  of  the  trumpets  of 


94       THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

revolt.  His  walled  garden  had  turned  into  a  symbol. 
Outside  it,  like  a  sea  girdling  her  paradise,  she  seemed 
to  hear  the  clamoring  cry  of  women — the  hunted,  the 
unshielded — condemned  to  cry  in  dissonance  without 
her  own  voice  to  make  it  harmony.  She  loved  him, 
the  "young  man  in  his  beauty,"  but  he  was  no  longer 
Gilbert  Mills  alone:  he  was  child  of  the  traditions 
that  had  made  revolt  inevitable.  What  room  was 
there  on  this  "darkling  plain"  where  "ignorant 
armies  clash  by  night"  for  the  bride  bower  and  the 
vows  of  cherishing  according  to  what  she  called  a 
specious  ritual? 

Yet  so  gently  did  she  think  of  him  that  when  she 
heard  his  voice  at  her  door,  that  late  twilight,  she 
could  answer. 

"Grace,"  he  said,  "will  you  listen?" 

"  Yes,"  she  said.     "  I'm  listening." 

"You've  forced  my  hand.     This  can't  go  on." 

"  Yes,  it  can.     I'm  up  to  it." 

"The  doors  are  open.  You  can  go.  I've  given 
Wenna  a  rigid  schedule  for  your  food.  You'll  abide 
by  it,  won't  you?  Nothing  else  till  you're  in  shape." 

"That  was  good  of  you.  Yes,  I  believe  it  upsets 
you  to  eat  after — " 

She  paused.  She  wanted  to  save  him  the  crude 
sound  of  things.  Still  it  seemed  to  her  that  this 
wasn't  Gil  starving  her:  only  the  cruelty  of  time  that 
had  starved  women  in  so  many  ways, — starved  them 
into  hysteria  if  Gil  were  right.  Now  they  were  no 
longer  wives  and  maidens.  They  were  Judiths;  they 
were  Bacchse  on  the  mountain  drinking  blood. 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT      95 

"Treherne  will  be  ready,"  he  continued,  "to  take 
you  up  to  London  in  the  car." 

"Shall  you  come,  too?"  The  question  leaped 
from  her. 

"I  hadn't  meant  to.  I  thought  you'd  rather  not. 
I  wish  you'd  let  me — to  make  sure  you're  all  right." 

"I  shall  be  all  right."  She  heard  Wenna  on  the 
stairs,  bringing,  she  knew,  a  spoonful  of  food  for 
which  appetite  had  gone.  "But  I  think  you'd  bet 
ter  come." 

This  she  said  to  give  him  less  anxiety  over  her 
state,  and  he  thanked  her  humbly.  Wenna  slipped 
in  with  her  spoon  and  cup.  Wenna  was  crying  in  a 
low-spirited  way  as  if  she  had  cried  for  days  and 
was  tired  of  it.  But  Grace  took  the  liquid  like  medi 
cine,  and  then  called  again  to  the  man  outside  the 
door. 

"Gil!" 

"Yes,  I'm  here." 

"Have  you  done  it?" 

"Yes." 

"You've  betrayed  us?" 

"I've  given  you  away." 

"The  whole  plan,  Gil,  the  whole  big  plan?" 

"Absolutely." 

"Then  it  hasn't  happened?" 

"  No.     I've  saved  you  from  that,  at  least." 

She  got  on  her  feet. 

"Tell  Treherne,"  she  said,  "to  be  ready  in  half  an 
hour.  I'm  going  to  London." 

"Grace,  you  can't  do  anything.    It  never  can 


96       THE  MAN  AND  THE  MILITANT 

happen  now,  I  tell  you,  never  to  the  end  of  time. 
There'll  be  a  thousand  pairs  of  eyes  on  it,  all  watch 
ing — till  you  and  I  are  dead  and  the  world  is  sane 
again." 

"It  isn't  that,"  she  said.  She  was  trembling,  and 
her  teeth  chattered.  "But  you've  done  it,  Gil — 
and  I'm  glad  it's  done,  too.  I  loved  it.  I  couldn't 
bear  to  have  it  destroyed.  But  somehow  because 
you've  done  it  I  can't  stay  here  in  your  house  and 
eat  your  food.  Wenna,  get  my  coat  and  tell  Tre- 
herne." 

And  after  all,  she  let  him  go  with  her,  and  through 
the  moonlit  night,  past  the  unheard  nightingale  in 
copses  their  car  ran  by,  they  sat  in  deep  love  of  each 
other  and  a  sick  distrust,  and  drove  to  London.  He 
left  her  at  her  door  in  the  leaden  dawn.  She  looked 
like  the  spirit  of  it,  her  soft  cheeks  grayed. 

"Good-by,  Wenna,"  she  said.  "Good-by,  Tre- 
herne."  She  turned  to  Gilbert,  "Good-by.  You'll 
be  sailing  soon." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "as  soon  as  I  know  you're  fit  again. 
Won't  you — "  He  had  her  hand  now  and  drew  her 
a  pace  away  from  the  two  sad  Cornish  servitors  who 
seemed  to  have  shut  themselves  into  their  reserve. 
"Grace,  won't  you  come  with  me?  Come  home." 

"Last  call?  "  she  asked,  in  a  loving  mockery  of  him. 
She  smiled,  a  little  wry,  old  smile.  "No,  Gil.  Give 
my  love  to  Salem." 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

IT  was  a  pleasantry  among  an  informal  set  of  us 
in  the  studios  that  Anne  Ritchie,  after  withstanding 
our  individual  fascinations  from  a  piquing  yet 
affectionate  coolness,  had  been,  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  bewitched  by  a  cosmopolitan.  His  name, 
he  said — and  none  of  us  thought  of  doubting  it — 
was  Louis  Fieldman.  He  had  appeared  in  our  laxly 
hospitable  circle,  introduced  by  somebody,  we  soon 
forgot  who,  and  was  accepted,  wholly  on  account  of 
his  personal  charm,  persuasive  enough  to  lay  the 
usual  precautionary  hesitations  to  rest.  He  was 
tall,  blond,  keen-eyed,  and  yet,  subtly,  like  an  im 
plication  of  the  real  self  he  could  show  if  there  weren't 
decorous  inhibitions,  with  a  manner  some  one  called 
tender.  She  was  well  jeered  at  for  saying  it,  but 
doggedly  held  to  her  point,  and  though  nobody 
accepted  the  word  for  working  use,  it  was  inwardly 
felt  to  be  the  right  one.  He  was  indeed  a  charmer, 
well  equipped.  He  knew  folklore,  legends,  the  lyric 
beauties  of  old  countries,  though  he  spoke,  he  said 
at  once,  no  tongue  but  English.  He  seemed  to  have 
no  occupation,  but  indifferently  accounted  for  it. 
He  was,  he  said,  "a  correspondent,  of  sorts,"  and 
was  lying  off  a  bit.  He  was  tired  of  the  same  old 
game  and  the  indifferent  rewards.  By  and  by  there 

97 


98  A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

would  be  a  war  or  something,  and  he  should  pitch  in 
again.  All  these  hazy  excursions  about  the  edges  of 
main  fact  would  have  contented  us;  but  we  saw  Anne 
Ritchie  was  in  love  with  him.  Then  we  wanted  to 
know  the  definite  and  absolutely  worldly  equivalent 
of  our  gentleman.  How  much  would  he  weigh  in 
honor  and  in  cash?  It  was  the  custom  to  be  in  love 
with  Anne.  I  was  not,  because  I  was  too  old  for 
anything  but  a  spiritual  uncleship.  We  recognized 
that  between  us,  and  it  enabled  her  to  like  me  "good 
and  hard,"  she  said,  without  being  misunderstood 
or  held  to  promissory  notes,  and  it  gave  me  some 
protective  rights  over  her,  though  as  yet  I  had  had 
no  occasion  to  use  them. 

Anne  was  the  darling  of  the  studios,  entirely  with 
out  conscious  charm  but  shedding  the  fragrance  of 
an  exquisite  gentleness  at  every  breath.  I  doubt 
whether  she  was  beautiful;  yet  they  were  all  forever 
wanting  to  paint  her:  a  slender  gracefulness,  a  healthy 
pallor,  a  moonlight  wistfulness  from  haunting  eyes. 
Anne  was  the  most  normal  woman  I  ever  knew,  the 
rhythm  of  her  loveliness  actually  the  pulse  of  per 
fect  health;  but  her  uncommon  look  of  appeal,  her 
haunting  suggestiveness  of  beauties  beyond  sense, 
had  the  power  to  rouse  all  kinds  of  dormant  worship 
in  all  degrees  of  men.  From  her  first  meeting  with 
Fieldman,  I  saw  her  turn  to  him  with  an  inevitable- 
ness  that  was  like  nothing  but  implicit  obedience. 
He  saw  it,  too,  and,  with  a  mastery  of  himself  that 
was  extraordinary,  seemed  not  to  recognize  it.  But 
he  charmed  her  more  and  more.  He  did  small, 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE  99 

seemingly  involuntary,  services  for  her;  he  sang 
songs  of  invitation  to  love;  he  did  enchanting  things, 
and  she  was  enchanted. 

One  night  there  was  a  circle  about  the  open  fire  in 
Ben  Moody 's  studio.  They  were  burning  laurel, 
leaf  by  leaf,  an  accumulation  dried  for  such  idle 
ceremonial,  and  as  it  spent  its  hoarded  beauty  in 
sparks  they  sang  idling  verse  or  tossed  about  reverie 
from  lip  to  lip.  Fieldman  was  at  an  angle  where 
Anne  could  see  him  perfectly  with  the  firelight  on 
his  ruddy  and  gold  comeliness,  and  she  leaned  back 
a  little  behind  Moody's  great  shoulders,  to  watch 
luxuriously  from  the  shadow.  I  got  up,  complain 
ing  of  the  heat,  but  really  because  I  couldn't  bear 
her  rapt  worship,  and  made  my  way  back  to  a  corner, 
and  there  Jane  Wall  joined  me.  Jane  was  fully  my 
own  age,  a  gaunt,  gray-haired  creature  whose  starved 
youth  ought  to  have  been  spent  in  painting,  and  who 
lived  now  in  an  ecstasy  of  content  before  the  vesti 
bule  of  the  art  she  would  never  approach  more 
nearly.  She  had  drawn  up  a  little  chair  and  rested 
her  elbow  on  the  arm  of  the  big  carved  one  I  sulked 
in.  It  brought  her  within  whispering  distance,  and 
she  did  whisper  acidly: 

"Who  is  he?" 

I  made  no  pretense  of  needing  a  more  particular 
designation. 

"He  says,"  I  pronounced  bitterly  in  my  return 
whisper,  "he  is  a  cosmopolitan." 

"That's  not  enough,"  returned  she,  "for  a  man 
Anne  looks  at  like  that." 


100          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

"Oh,  what's  the  odds?"  I  put  in.  "He  doesn't 
look  at  her." 

Yet  I  knew  every  guarded  silence  of  his  was  a 
hypnotic  appeal.  It  said:  "I  am  not  suing,  but 
here  are  my  stronghold  and  my  garden.  Do  they 
please?  do  they  tempt?" 

"His  not  looking  is  the  most  insidious  courting 
I've  seen,"  said  she.  "You  know  it  is.  It's  not 
because  he  cares  so  little.  It's  because  he  means  so 
much.  He's  sitting  there  letting  her  steal  nearer 
and  nearer,  out  of  a  half-frightened  fascination. 
When  she's  near  enough  he'll  nab  her." 

"Don't,"  1  jerked  out.  "You're  a  horrible  old 
Cassandra." 

"No,  I'm  not,"  said  she.  And  again:  "You  know 
it.  But  before  he  nabs  her  we're  going  to  find  out 
things  about  him  and  understand  precisely  who's 
nabbing  her.  Listen  to  that." 

Jack  Bretton,  who,  at  odd  moments  when  the 
world  shone  very  bright  about  him,  called  himself 
Jacques  le  Bret,  was  telling  a  story  in  his  facile 
French.  It  might  as  well  have  been  told  in  English, 
but  it  gave  him  a  chance  for  a  rapid  flourish  of  idiom. 
The  story  was  sufficiently  neat,  and  everybody 
laughed  with  the  idle  satisfaction  of  having  given 
him  what  he  fondly  desired  and  being  allowed  now 
to  return  to  English.  My  terrible  Jane  leaned  for 
ward,  her  gray  head  silhouetted  against  the  firelight 
leaping  higher  now  as  it  devoured  a  garland. 

"Mr.  Fieldman,"  said  she,  "why  don't  you 
laugh?" 


A  CITIZEN  AND  BIS  WIPE         101 

He  turned  his  face  toward  us  and  said,  with  a 
grave  courtesy: 

"I  am  so  sorry,  but  I  don't  understand  French." 

"Ah,"  said  the  merciless  Jane,  "but  you  under 
stand  Russian?" 

"No,"  said  he,  still  with  the  same  gentle  gravity: 
"nothing  but  English." 

"Ah!    German?" 

"No,  nothing  but  English." 

"How  can  you  be  a  foreign  correspondent?"  she 
persisted  with  such  an  evident  intention  of  worrying 
him  that  several  heads  took  an  alerter  pose,  and 
Anne  turned  square  round  upon  her.  "I  can't 
imagine  a  correspondent's  being  of  any  use  if  he  has 
no  languages." 

"It  is  a  great  handicap,"  agreed  Fieldman  politely. 
"But — "  he  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  spoke  rather 
ruefully — "I  do  what  I  can." 

"Sing,"  some  one  proposed.  Actual  sparring  was 
frowned  on  in  the  studios.  "Sword  Song." 

So,  idly  and  also,  in  some  quarters,  vehemently, 
they  broke  into  the  clamorous: 

Ferrara  made  and  fashioned  me, 
In  Cordova  in  Spain. 

Fieldman  listened  with  a  pleased  attention.  It 
was  repeated,  for  when  they  had  once  begun  singing 
"Ferrara"  they  were  likely  to  continue  from  heroic 
impetus,  and  with  the  second  repetition  he  threw  in 
his  big  baritone,  and  Anne,  with  a  little  shiver  of 
delight,  put  her  hand  over  her  eyes.  She  was  with 
drawing  into  her  own  intimate  solitudes  to  be  the 


102         A  'CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

nearer  him.  But  when  that  song  was  exhausted 
and  there  was  a  silence  that  promised  to  continue 
briefly,  Jane,  was  at  him  again. 

"Mr.  Fieldman,"  said  she,  "are  you  an  American?  " 

"Yes,"  he  replied  at  once,  with  a  gentleness  some 
what  tinged  with  compassion  for  her.  It  seemed 
bent  on  concealing  even  from  her  the  degree  of  her 
own  crudity.  "I  am  an  American  citizen." 

"Born  here?" 

"No,  Miss  Wall.     I  was  born  at  sea." 

A  murmur,  hardly  a  breath,  ran  over  the  circle. 
It  sounded  like  pity  for  a  child  born  at  sea;  but  it 
was  really  extreme  ruth  over  a  citizen  of  any  country 
who  had  fallen  under  the  inquisition  of  Jane  Wall. 

"Your  father  and  mother  were  Americans?"  she 
stated,  with  an  implication  of  doubt  so  strongly 
subtle  that  I  admired  and  wondered  how  she  had 
managed  it. 

"No,"  said  he,  "they  were  not  Americans,  It  is 
I  who  am  American — a  naturalized  American  citi 


zen." 


Here  I  laid  a  hand  on  the  sinewy  wrist  of  the  one 
gripping  my  chair.  I  was  trying  to  tell  her  she 
had  driven  him  far  enough.  More  would  have 
started  the  others  in  full  cry  of  hostility  against  her. 
She  understood,  and  when  they  began,  in  a  nervous 
relief,  to  sing  again,  she  threw  at  me,  with  a  scornful 
toss,  as  if  such  a  self-evident  fact  might  reach  me  or 
not,  since  I  knew  its  substance  already: 

"Do  you  call  that  answering?  I  call  it  scuttling 
into  a  hole  and  drawing  the  hole  in  after  you." 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          103 

"Don't  worry,"  I  said,  in  a  quick  undertone. 
"I'll  look  him  up.  If  I  can't,  I'll  pay  somebody  else 
to  do  it." 

But  there  was  never  time  to  look  him  up.  Shocked 
out  of  his  security  perhaps  by  Jane,  or  judging  that 
the  moment  of  passionate  attack  and  victory  had 
come,  he  laid  siege  to  Anne  and  married  her,  all  in 
three  days.  It  was  done  without  my  knowledge, 
actually  under  the  eyes  of  all  her  old  friends,  and 
yet  beyond  their  hearing.  We  literally  had  to  be 
told  by  the  wedding  announcement  that  Anne  was 
no  longer  ours.  The  card  informed  us  further  that 
she  would  be  at  home  without  the  delay  of  a  day 
spent  in  seclusion  under  the  moon  of  love. 

We  went,  in  a  group  as  if  to  give  one  another  cour 
age,  to  a  house  in  a  most  respectable  quarter,  fur 
nished  from  roof  to  ground  in  a  completeness  of 
luxury,  a  barbarity  of  pomp  none  of  us  would  willingly 
have  encountered,  and  found  her  husband,  the  cos 
mopolite,  unchanged,  and  Anne  herself,  all  in  white, 
like  a  creature  caught  up  into  an  unimagined  heaven 
and  incredulous  of  her  fortune.  Others  were  there 
besides  our  gang,  friends  of  his,  she  told  me  after 
ward,  queer  men  of  a  foreign  stamp,  and  heavy  men 
bearing  the  dollar  mark.  A  strange  mingling,  one 
balanced  against  the  other,  as  if  they  said: 

"Here  are  the  extremes  of  earthly  fortune  and 
desire.  But  we're  all  at  one,  in  some  hidden  way 
you  artist-folk  haven't  penetrated." 

Anne,  after  a  lovely  welcome  of  us,  drew  me  aside 
into  a  window  recess  and  let  fall  the  screening  cur- 


104          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

tains  between  us  and  the  unassorted  crowd.  Then 
she  looked  up  at  me  with  flower-blue  eyes  all  dewy, 
and  said : 

"Forgive  me." 

"I  won't,"  said  I,  stoutly  at  the  outset,  though  I 
knew  I  had  already  forgiven. 

"It  was  a  crazy  haste  to  marry  in,"  she  said. 
"But  I  was  alone;  nobody  to  ask,  and  he  wanted  it 


so." 


' Nobody  to  ask?  "  said  I.     "  You  had  me." 

"Yes."  She  made  pretty  eyes  at  me.  "But 
you'd  have  said:  'Wait.'" 

"I  should,"  I  owned  to  her.  "I  should  have  said: 
'Let  me  look  him  up.": 

"I  knew  it,"  said  she.  "But  that  would  have 
been  silly." 

"Why  would  it?" 

"Because  I  knew." 

I  hadn't  a  wish  to  shake  her  certainties  now  that 
the  irrevocable  had  closed  its  door  on  her,  but  I 
couldn't  help  asking: 

"What  do  you  know  about  him?" 

"I  won't  tell  you,"  said  Anne.  "You  don't 
deserve  to  hear." 

"Only  a  word  or  two,  Anne.  Who  is  he?  Who 
was  his  father?  Who  was  his  mother?" 

Anne  looked  at  me  and  laughed  outright  in  a  way 
unlike  her,  even  in  her  happiest  moments  before 
this  new  wind  of  destiny  had  blown  her  to  flowery 
heights. 

"He  is  a  citizen  of  the  world,"  said  she. 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          105 

She  gave  me  a  little  tap  of  old  possession  and 
present  kindliness,  and  swept  aside  the  curtains  for 
us  to  rejoin  the  tea-drinking  crowd.  But  I  under 
stood  perfectly  that  she  merely  didn't  know  who 
his  father  was,  and  that  she  didn't  care.  It  was  a 
part  of  her  gallant  bravado  to  glory  in  accepting  him 
without  the  current  hall  marks.  I  went  out,  and 
dutifully,  yet  with  a  wry  mind,  drank  tea  with  the 
bizarre  assemblage,  and  I  became  conscious  pres 
ently  that  there  were  no  American  voices  save  ours 
of  the  studios  and  no  clear  English  speech.  Some 
of  the  men  were  professional — I  gather  that — each 
talking  about  his  specialty:  most  were  deep-throated, 
guttural,  and  deficient  in  humor.  I  made  a  few 
little  attempts  on  them  in  the  half -ironic  obliqueness 
current  in  social  intercourse,  and  they  only  stared  at 
me.  They  were,  in  some  impetuous  way,  much  in 
earnest  and  taking  themselves,  also  in  a  mysterious 
way,  with  great  seriousness.  I  escaped  before  the  rest 
of  our  crowd  and,  with  Jane  Wall,  walked  dismally 
away,  a  gorgeous  sunset  flaming  at  our  backs.  Jane, 
dressed  in  oozy  greens  and  salmon  pinks,  was  a  sight, 
but  her  honest  face  looked  right  to  me  after  the 
strange  beasts  I  had  tried  to  establish  connection 
with.  She  put  my  distaste  into  words. 

"Did  you  ever  see  such  a  mob?" 

"Evidently  his  friends,"  I  said,  out  of  an  unfor- 
mulated  desire  to  stand  for  Anne's  environment. 

"Evidently.  And  that's  his  house.  We  none  of 
us  thought  he  had  a  house.  He's  been  hanging  out 
at  a  little  family  hotel." 


106          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

"I  suppose  he  found  it  furnished,"  I  volunteered, 
again  remembering  we  spoke  of  Anne's  husband. 

"Fiddle  f addle!  that  house  was  furnished  out  of 
his  brain  a  good  long  time  beforehand,  and  it  shows 
he  knew  she'd  have  him." 

I  made  no  civil  pretext  of  wanting  to  walk  home 
with  Jane  Wall.  I  felt  I  could  not  endure  the 
assault  of  one  more  bare  brutality,  and  left  her  at 
the  next  corner.  It  seemed  to  me  probable,  as 
I  smoked  my  pipe  alone  that  evening,  that  I  should 
never  enter  Anne's  house  again. 

But  I  did  enter.  I  was  drawn  by  a  dismal  desire 
to  assure  myself  whether  she  really  was  happy,  and 
though  her  gay  welcome  and  her  cozy  confidences 
left  no  doubt  of  the  matter,  I  went  again  and  again. 
And  every  time  I  found  the  same  frequenters  of  the 
house.  They  were  not  merely  there  on  public  days. 
They  swarmed  in  it.  There  were  alien  presences  at 
all  hours  coming  and  going,  an  orgie,  Jane  Wall  said, 
of  hospitality.  She  brazenly  went  whenever  she 
was  invited  and  even  stayed  the  night,  and  she 
assured  me  there  were  as  many  camping  aliens  at 
breakfast  as  at  midnight  suppers,  and  over  them  all 
Anne  presided  joyously,  a  lavish  hostess,  loving  her 
hideous  house  because  it  had  been  decreed  for  her, 
adoring  her  husband  and  being  adored.  Jane  called 
the  flocking  aliens  hateful  names:  locusts,  devouring 
the  land,  Sindbads,  crooks.  She  talked  so  shame 
lessly  about  them  and  I  listened  so  unprotestingly 
that  I  began  to  doubt  our  right,  in  decency,  to  go 
to  Anne's  house  at  all.  But  one  day  Anne  herself 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          107 

told  me  a  startling  thing.  I  was  calling,  and  she 
ran  downstairs  with  me  at  the  end,  and  there,  on  a 
sofa  in  a  little  reception  room,  we  came  on  a  bearded 
Sindbad  sound  asleep.  I  was  for  waking  him  and 
turning  him  out  neck  and  crop.  I  had  a  certainty 
he  was  not  staying  in  the  house,  but  Anne  stood 
clutching  my  arm  and  laughing  noiselessly  at  my 
nervousness  and  the  drollery  of  the  situation. 

"Do  you  know  who  he  is?"  I  asked  her. 

"No,"  she  whispered,  overcome  by  the  absurdity 
of  it.  "I  don't  know  him  from  Adam." 

"I  won't  leave  you  in  the  house  with  fellows  from 
nobody  knows  where,"  I  told  her.  "Come,  be  a 
good  girl.  I'm  going  to  pitch  him  out." 

"But  he's  a  perfect  right  to  be  here,"  she  assured 
me. 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"Because  he  couldn't  have  got  in  if  he  hadn't." 

"You  don't  know  how  he  got  in,"  I  reminded  her. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  do.  He  has  a  latchkey.  They  all 
have  latchkeys." 

"What!"  I  said,  feeling  for  an  instant  I'd  caught 
her  off  guard — "all  those  hordes  of  the  desert?  Do 
you  mean  to  tell  me  they've  the  entree  to  your  house 
unannounced?" 

"Bless  you,  yes,"  said  Anne.  She  was  hanging 
on  my  arm  and  still  regarding  the  prone  sleeper  with 
amusement  not  tinged  with  the  slightest  apprehen 
sion.  "Of  course  they  have.  It  was  theirs  before 
my  husband  took  it."  She  always  said  "my  hus 
band"  in  a  prim  way,  as  if  she  held  the  shield  of  her 


108         A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

possession,  to  guard  him  from  incidental  judgments. 
"They  met  here,  you  know." 

"They?"  I  ventured.     "Is  it  a  club?" 

She  grew  instantly  serious.  A  little  frown  knit 
itself  between  her  brows.  She  had  betrayed  some 
thing.  And  at  that  moment  the  front  door  opened 
and  Fieldman  came  in,  singing.  He  was  red  with 
the  cold,  full  of  life,  bountifully  happy,  and  Anne 
left  my  arm  and  fled  to  him  in  a  still  but  absolutely 
apparent  passion  of  welcome.  He  was  not  careless 
of  her,  but  he  was,  my  eyes  told  me,  used  to  that 
sort  of  implied  largess  and  could  pass  it  over  with 
out  a  tremendous  recognition,  knowing  what  endless 
riches  she  had  for  him  and  what  unstinted  moments. 
Besides,  he  saw  me,  and,  through  the  door,  the  sleep 
ing  invader.  He  put  Anne  aside  with  a  little  word, 
nodded  to  me,  and  went  in  to  his  guest.  And  imme 
diately  I  had  the  feeling  that  Anne,  the  inner,  im 
material  part  of  her,  was  wafting  me  away.  She 
was  terribly  afraid  I  should  stay  too  long,  in  some 
manner  insinuate  myself  into  that  dialogue  between 
the  master  of  the  house  and  his  guest,  and  I  was 
hurt  enough  to  go  with  an  offended  haste.  At  the 
door  she  leaned  forward  to  me  as  I  halted  on  the 
upper  step,  and  asked  me  a  hasty  question. 

"Did  you  hear,"  she  trembled,  in  an  anxious 
undertone,  "what  they  said?" 

"No,"  I  told  her,  looking  her  straight  in  the  face. 

It  was  a  lie.  I  had  heard.  The  two  were  talking 
rapidly  in  an  alien  tongue,  the  stranger  and  Fieldman 
who  had  said  he  spoke  only  English. 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          109 

After  that  I  didn't  go  to  the  house  for  a  long  time, 
but  one  night  it  drew  me,  the  thought  of  its  hideous 
magnificence  imprisoning  her  in  her  beauty  like  the 
toad  with  the  jewel  in  his  head.  I  had  to  go  once 
in  so  often,  I  told  myself,  to  assure  my  elderly  heart 
she  was  safe.  From  what?  I  never  asked  myself. 
A  woman  with  such  happy  eyes  was  more  than  safe. 
She  had  entered  into  the  security  of  the  eternally 
loving  and  the  well-beloved.  The  amount  of  it  was, 
I  owned  now,  as,  in  spite  of  me,  my  feet  carried  me 
up  the  steps,  I  had  to  see  her  at  intervals,  merely 
because  I  loved  her,  to  bathe  my  sick  desires  in  the 
well  of  her  kind  eyes.  I  always  came  away  from 
her  refreshed,  able  to  live  in  my  still  seclusions  a 
little  longer.  I  was  taken  into  the  library  where 
she  sat  alone  by  the  fire  in  the  serene  companionship 
of  a  book.  She  was  in  blue  and  white,  Madonna 
colors,  and  for  the  first  time  I  thought  of  her  having 
a  child,  and  the  thought  choked  me.  She  sprang  up, 
instantly  all  gay  glance  and  motion.  She  was  glad 
to  see  me,  and  we  sat  down  and  talked  in  our  old 
way,  as  if  no  citizen  of  the  world  had  ever  shut  her 
up  in  his  tawdry  house.  I  didn't  ask  for  Fieldman. 
It  was  apparent  he  was  away  from  home,  which  was 
all  that  affected  me.  But  suddenly,  about  half 
an  hour  after  my  coming,  a  door  opened  somewhere 
on  the  landing  above,  and  a  flood  of  men's  voices 
came  out  and  ceased  again  as  the  door  closed.  I 
looked  at  her,  with  a  little  smile  perhaps,  I  felt  so 
fortunate  in  being  intimately  alone  with  her  and  not 
invited  to  go  appropriately  up  and  intern  myself  with 


110          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

my  kind.  She  answered  my  look  with  a  smile, 
reminiscent,  I  thought,  proud. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "they're  up  there.  This  is  a 
special  night." 

"Special?"  I  asked.  I  did  want  to  know  some 
thing  about  Fieldman's  activities. 

She  quenched  the  smile,  as  if  it  might  tell  me  more 
than  she  intended. 

"I'm  always  indiscreet  with  you,"  she  said. 
"With  nobody  else.  I've  assured  him  so." 

"Indiscreet?"  I  ventured  again.  "It's  a  secret 
session?" 

"You're  making  me  indiscreet  again," she  frowned, 
rueful  over  her  own  lapses,  and  yet  amused  at  them, 
too,  she  did  trust  me  so  completely.  That  is  the 
long,  proud  feather  in  my  cap,  and  I  am  glad  to  wave 
it  here.  "However,  it  doesn't  matter.  I  don't 
really  know  anything.  But  I  am  to  know  very  soon. 
He  is  to  tell  me.  I'm  to  be  taken  in." 

"Into  the  society?"  I  asked. 

"Not  that  exactly.  But  told  things.  You  can't 
guess  how  proud  I  shall  be.  Don't  you  see?  Till 
then  I'm  not  quite  his  wife.  There's  one  part  of 
him  I  don't  share." 

"You've  shared  everything  else?"  I  suggested 
gently,  the  gaunt  shadow  of  Jane  Wall  at  my  side 
egging  me  on. 

She  tightened  her  lips  and  looked  me  in  the  eyes. 

"Everything,"  she  said  firmly. 

"Then,"  said  I,  "little  Anne,  just  for  old  sake's 
sake — to  quiet  down  my  parental  flutterings,  you 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          111 

know — tell  me  who  he  is.  His  nationality,  at  least." 
Anne  looked  at  me  a  moment,  pale  to  the  lips. 
But  she  got  a  smile  out  of  the  lips  then,  and  the  gay 
little  laugh  followed. 

"I  told  you,"  said  she.  "He's  a  citizen  of  the 
world." 

So  I  laughed  too,  and  we  talked  about  safer 
things.  But  the  current  of  our  amity  had  been 
deflected  and  I  didn't  get  much  further  satisfaction 
out  of  my  call.  Again,  toward  eleven,  the  door 
opened  and  closed,  and  a  man  ran  down  the  stairs 
and  out  of  the  house,  and  after  that  Anne  grew 
visibly  uneasy.  Suddenly  I  understood.  She  was 
afraid  the  meeting  would  break  up  and  they  would 
all  come  down,  perhaps  continuing  the  tags  of  their 
talk,  and  her  husband  would  find  me  there  and  be 
annoyed.  So  I  took  my  leave  in  a  hurry,  and  she, 
I  saw,  understood  and  was  grateful  to  me.  At  least 
I  could  still  win  meager  favors  of  gratitude  and 
confidence,  though  the  big  prizes  had  all  gone. 

But  the  next  time  I  went  to  her  house  I  was  not 
admitted,  nor  was  I  the  second  time  and  the  third. 
It  was  not  difficult  to  read  the  hint.  The  citizen 
of  the  world  had  found  my  casual  presence  too  near 
the  outer  bounds,  at  least,  of  his  relations.  I  stayed 
away  and  nursed  my  resentment  against  him  and 
whatever  unclassed  tenderness  I  had  for  her.  Jane 
Wall,  too,  was  denied,  but  she  was  furious  and  kept 
on  going,  confident,  she  said,  it  was  no  order  of 
Anne's,  and  challenged  by  the  shut  look  of  the  place. 
Even  the  upper  windows,  she  declared,  were  non- 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

committal.  Their  heavy  curtains  fell  with  an  actual 
hostility.  She  was  even  prepared,  if  she  could  get 
anywhere  near  them,  to  find  the  panes  themselves 
barred.  But  she  never  did  get  near  them,  nor  did  I. 
It  was  one  night  about  six  months  after  this  that 
I  was  by  my  own  fire  in  my  unfashionable  part 
of  the  town,  reading  a  little,  thinking  a  great  deal. 
My  house  was  a  gem  in  the  heart  of  that  ignored 
precinct.  I  had  furnished  it  bit  by  bit  at  the  slow 
pace  of  one  who  crawls  cautiously  toward  the  de 
sired  perfection  of  a  work  of  art.  The  whole  thing 
was  small,  a  cameo  set  to  a  wonderful  standard  of 
excellence  I  had  always  held  in  my  mind.  I  knew 
how  the  whole  thing  had  worked  out.  It  had  begun 
with  my  mother's  old-fashioned  house  full  of  a  mel 
lowed  loveliness,  and  it  had  grown  with  the  thought 
of  Anne  some  time  in  the  midst  of  it.  Strange  wist 
ful  solacings  the  hungry  mind  allows  itself!  I  had 
known  from  the  beginning  that  Anne  would  never 
be  for  me  anything  but  the  unattainable  though 
recognized  well-beloved.  Yet  I  had  built  her  house, 
and  on  nights  when  I  was  most  desolately  at  home 
in  it  I  saw  the  imagined  reality  of  her  sitting  there, 
moving  about,  supremely  at  ease.  This  night 
especially  she  was  there  in  a  free,  gay  happiness. 
That  was  why  the  fire  sprang  so  high  and  bright. 
I  shut  my  book  on  my  knee  and  narrowed  my  eyes 
to  the  smallest  slit  that  would  admit  the  fire  blaze 
and  at  the  same  time  shut  out  the  emptiness  beside 
me.  For  a  moment  I  was  almost  happy,  as  we 
are  over  such  rueful  expedients.  I  hardly  knew 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          113 

whether  I  was  in  the  body  or  out  of  it,  and  at  a 
sound  I  looked  up,  not  to  be  surprised  if  I  found  her 
really  there.  And  there  in  the  doorway  she  stood, 
changed  from  my  last  sight  of  her,  worn  in  an  inex 
plicable  way,  and  yet  with  a  new  loveliness,  almost 
a  majesty,  a  divinity.  This  was  again  the  Madonna 
look,  and  she  was  wrapped  about  in  the  Madonna 
color,  a  great  blue  cloak. 

As  I  said,  I  felt  no  surprise.  I  got  up  and  drew  for 
ward  the  other  chair  an  inch.  I  had  an  idea  we  were 
perhaps  not  to  speak,  the  understanding  between 
us  seemed  likely  to  run  on  such  swift  and  soundless 
wheels.  But  she  spoke,  quietly,  practically: 

"  I  wouldn't  let  him  announce  me.  I  don't  know 
why." 

I  offered  to  take  her  cloak. 

"No,"  said  she.     "I'll  keep  it  on." 

She  sat  down  in  the  hearthside  chair,  still  with 
the  blue  cloak  wrapped  about  her.  I  threw  on  a 
log,  and  the  flames  leaped. 

"No,"  she  said  again  in  answer  to  my  questioning 
offer  of  drawing  the  chair  still  nearer.  "I'm  not 
cold.  But  I'll  keep  my  cloak.  David,  what  time 
it  is?" 

She  had  never  before  used  my  name;  but  I  was 
not  surprised  at  hearing  it  now,  only  warmed  some 
how  as  if  it  fitted  the  everyday  peace  of  our  com 
panionship.  I  told  her  the  time  and  she  seemed  to 
gather  herself  for  some  determined  effort. 

"I've  things  to  tell  you,"  she  said.  I  kept  my 
eyes  on  hers,  but  I  did  not  answer.  There  was  no 


114          A   CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

need  of  answering  except  by  that  grave  communion 
of  the  eyes,  "I  have  been  making  up  my  mind  to 
it  for  a  good  many  months.  It  is  a  secret.  It  was 
confided  to  me.  And  I'm  going  to  tell." 

"It  sha'n't  go  farther,"  I  assured  her. 

"It  can  go  as  much  farther  as  you  like,"  said  she. 
"I  trust  you  absolutely  to  do  the  best  thing  with  it. 
I  can't  do  anything.  I'm  tied.  But  you'll  know. 
You'll  do  it.  I  leave  it  in  your  hands."  A  ghost 
of  her  old  smile  ran  over  her  face  then.  She  wrink 
led  her  brows  at  me  in  that  wistful  way  she  had. 
"David,"  said  she,  "I  don't  exactly  know  how  to 
begin.  Ask  me  questions." 

"How  is  your  husband?"  I  began  at  random. 

She  drew  a  little  breath.  "  That's  right,"  she  said. 
"That  starts  me.  He  is  away,  on  business.  To 
morrow  morning  he  will  get  the  letter  I  have  written 
him,  telling  him  where  I  have  gone  and  that  he  won't 
find  me  when  he  comes  back." 

For  an  instant  of  sickening  delight  I  almost  be 
lieved  she  had  left  him  and  come  to  me  in  every 
sense  beyond  that  of  her  bodily  presence.  I  couldn't 
ask  my  question,  but  she  answered  it. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  have  left  him.  I  shall  never 
go  back,  unless — " 

Suddenly  I  felt  a  red-hot  anger,  and  that,  too, 
she  must  have  read. 

"No,  David,"  said  she  gently;  "not  that.  He  has 
been  good  to  me:  delightful,  too,  in  an  enchanting 
way.  It  has  never  failed  me.  It's  only  that  I  told 
myself  I  must  stop  being  enchanted." 


A  CITIZEN    AND  HIS  WIFE          115 

"You  love  him?"  I  blundered. 

"I  am  not  thinking  of  that,"  she  said.  "There 
are  things  I've  got  to  do,  and  if  I  think  of  things  in 
that  way — love,  you  know — I  can't  do  them." 

For  a  moment  she  was  shaken  by  the  piteous 
apparition  of  the  things  she  must  not  remember.  I 
could  see  her  desperate  need  of  woman's  resource 
from  passion,  wild  tears,  shipwreck  on  the  desolate 
shore  of  lost  hopes,  and  then  a  forlorn  placidity.  I 
could  fancy  she  had  traversed  all  that.  She  had 
been  almost  drowned  in  some  sea  and  then  cast  up 
again,  and  she  shuddered  away  from  such  devastating 
overthrow. 

"You  remember,"  she  said,  "I  told  you — indis 
creetly — that  I  was  to  be  let  into  the  secret  of  the 
meetings  at  the  house." 

It  was  betrayal  itself,  the  impersonality  of  her 
never  once  calling  the  house  hers  or  his.  I  nodded. 

"I  see  why  I  was  to  be  told.  It  was  not  only 
because  it  would  be  safer,  but  because  he  truly 
wanted  me  to  become  a  part  of  him.  He  had  a 
great  idea  of  my  courage  and  fidelity  and  my  love 
for  him.  He  believed  the  thing  he  wanted  with  his 
whole  heart  I  should  want,  too,  and  we  should  be 
one  in  a — almost  a  glorious  way." 

She  stopped  here  and  bit  her  lip.  I  could  see  a 
pulse  beating  in  her  throat. 

"  Yes,  Anne,"  I  said.     "  You'd  be  as  true  as  steel." 

"That's  it,"  said  she  quickly.  "That's  precisely 
the  point.  He  thought  I  should  be  true;  but  I  am 
not.  I  am  betraying  him  to  you." 


116          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

Now  I  didn't  understand.  If  she  loved  him — 
and  what  was  it  but  the  beseeching  memory  of  love 
she  had  to  put  behind  her? — why  could  she  not  be 
true  to  him?  She  began  again,  moistening  her  dry 
lips: 

"He  is  a  traitor.  They  are  all  traitors,  those  men. 
They  are  conspiring  against  the  government." 

"But,"  I  said  stupidly, " he  is  an  American  citizen." 

"That,  I  suppose,"  said  Anne  wearily,  "is  what 
makes  it  treason." 

I  looked  at  her  dumbly,  and  then,  I  must  confess, 
the  personal  side  of  it  came  over  me,  and  I  broke 
out: 

"How  he  must  have  trusted  you!" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "absolutely."  She  lifted  her 
head  a  little  and  looked  her  pride.  But  the  pride 
did  not  last  long.  It  flowed  into  the  humility  of 
a  softer  passion,  unavailing,  yet  inevitable  regret. 
"He  owned  that  he  hadn't  really  known  me  at  the 
first.  He  had  been  attracted  to  me.  It  was  love, 
as  he  understood  it  then.  But  in  living  with  me  he 
saw  it  all  differently.  He  decided  I  was  worthy  of 
big  things.  He  had  a  vision  of  what  we  could  do, 
we  two,  if  I  felt  as  he  did.  And  he  hadn't  any  doubt 
whatever  that  I  should." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"I'm  putting  it  in  your  hands,"  said  she  simply. 
"You  will  know." 

"Have  you  evidence?"  I  asked. 

"None  but  my  word.  They  have  papers,  plans, 
letters,  photographs.  These  were  in  a  safe  in  the 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          117 

room  they  used  to  meet  in.  But  he  took  them  west 
with  him.  I  found  the  safe  empty." 

"Then  he  did  suspect  you,"  I  exclaimed. 

"No.  I  kissed  him  good-by.  Judas!  It  is  my 
impression  he  took  them  west  to  some  meeting 
there." 

"And  your  letter  simply  tells  him  you  have  left 
his  house?  Do  you  think  that  will  make  him  suspect 
anything  further?  " 

"No.  I  took  pains  to  make  it  affectionate  and 
kind.  Judas!  He  will  come  back  to  the  house. 
You  can  arrest  him  there  if  you  think  best." 

It  seemed  to  me  monstrous,  the  thing  itself,  the 
colossal  plot  against  her  happiness.  I  saw  what 
miles  her  bleeding  feet  had  carried  her  before  she 
could  compass  this  present  calm.  She  had  made 
pilgrimage  about  the  world  of  grief  and  back  again, 
not  once  only,  but  many  times,  before  she  could  have 
reached  this  spot. 

"Anne,"  I  said,  in  a  wild  grasp  at  hope  for  her, 
"you  do  love  him." 

"I've  done  thinking  of  that,"  she  said.  "I  told 
you  so.  See  here,  David."  She  stretched  out  one 
delicate  hand  and  laid  it  on  the  little  table  between 
us,  and  there  it  lay  clasping  and  unclasping  as  she 
talked.  While  I  live  I  cannot  forget  the  picture  of 
that  agonized  hand,  talking  as  her  lips  talked,  and 
allowed,  though  they  were  not,  its  signs  of  agony. 
"My  father  was  a  New  England  judge.  He  was  a 
man  of  reputation,  of  strict  honor.  My  grandfathers 
on  both  sides  were  farmers.  So  were  my  great- 


118          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

grandfathers.  They  were  good,  plain  men.  And 
they  were  Americans.  I  hadn't  realized  what  that 
meant  till  I  was  told  what  had  been  going  on  in  that 
locked  room  in  the  house  I've  lived  in.  It's  been 
growing  and  growing  in  me.  And  it's  come  to  birth. 
I'm  an  American,  David,  as  my  father  was  and  all 
those  plain,  honest  men  behind  us." 

I  couldn't  answer.  But  she  had  more  to  say.  Her 
face  twisted  into  an  anguish  dreadful  to  see.  In  the 
flash  before  I  could  turn  my  eyes  mercifully  away 
from  it,  I  even  wondered  if  her  poor  mouth  were 
convulsed  by  actual  disorder  of  the  nerves.  After 
this  she  talked  as  if  she  were  cold,  and  sometimes 
her  teeth  clicked  on  the  words. 

"It  isn't  that  you  choose,"  she  said,  "that  I  choose 
and  say  a  man  isn't  worth  the  entire  world  to  me. 
He  is  worth  the  whole  world  of  warmth  and  pleasure 
and  luxury,  or  life — life  itself;  but  there's  something 
in  all  those  generations  behind  you  you  can't  deny, 
any  more  than  you  can  deny  God.  If  the  man  you — 
you  belong  to — is — a  traitor,  you've  got  to — give 
him  up." 

And  she  had  given  him  up  to  me.  I  was  to  be  the 
one  to  carry  out  the  breaking  of  her  heart  to  the  last 
issue.  She  read  my  horror  of  the  task,  and  the  white 
hand  lay  there  lax  and  besought  pardon. 

"Couldn't  help  it,  David,"  she  said.  "I  tried  to 
think  of  another  way,  and  there  wasn't  any.  But 
somehow,  I've  got  to  stand  up  to  it.  Got  to,  David." 

Damning  myself  for  my  stupidity  in  not  doing  it 
before,  I  opened  a  cabinet  and  brought  her  a  glass 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE          119 

of  cordial.  She  sipped  it,  and  a  little  color  came 
back  into  her  cheeks. 

"The  other  thing  I've  got  to  stand  up  to — that's 
what  helped  me  make  up  my  mind,"  she  said. 
"I  couldn't  let  a  baby  have  the  wrong  kind  of 
mother." 

A  few  minutes  after  I  found  I  was  sitting  there, 
my  head  bent,  and  she  was  standing  by  me,  touching 
my  hair  with  the  kind,  tortured  hand. 

"Poor  Davy!"  she  was  saying.  Only  my  mother 
had  called  me  that.  "Good  boy!  dear  friend! 
You'll  think  for  me  now.  I  don't  know  what  you'll 
have  to  do.  But  it's  all  in  your  hands.  If  tLey 
want  me  to — to  testify — or  anything — "  Here  she 
staggered  a  step  backward  into  her  chair,  and  I  got 
up  and  pulled  her  cloak  about  her,  murmuring  I 
don't  know  what  words  of  love  and  pity.  "You'll 
see  him,"  she  said,  looking  up  at  me  with  despairing 
eyes.  "You'll  tell  him  I  set  the  trap  for  him.  I 
couldn't  warn  him  or  he  would  have  stayed  away 
and  kept  on  plotting.  Spying,  too,  David.  They 
are  spies."  Then  she  leaned  her  head  back  and 
shut  her  eyes  and  rested  so  a  moment.  She  opened 
her  eyes  quickly,  as  they  do  who  start  suddenly 
awake.  "My  only  hope,  David,  is  this,"  she  said. 
"That  he  will  understand.  He  worships  his  own 
country — where  he  was  born,  you  know.  Maybe  he 
can  understand  my  feeling  about  mine.  I  don't 
know." 

"You  mean  not  to  see  him  again?"  I  ventured. 
"You  would  refuse?" 


120          A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

Her  face  awoke  quite  gloriously.  "See  him?" 
she  repeated.  "Yes.  Work  for  him,  stand  by 
him,  take  his  disgrace  with  him.  If  he'll  let  me. 
But  my  own  work's  got  to  be  done  first." 

"Where  are  you  going,  Anne,"  I  asked,  "from 
here?" 

I  had  flooding  schemes  of  hiding  places  I  could  buy 
for  her  apart  from  all  of  us. 

"Why,  you  stupid  David,"  said  she,  "I'm  going 
to  the  hospital.  My  trunk  went  this  morning.  See, 
here's  his  address,  in  case  things  don't  go  well. 
You'll  wire  him.  Here  is  mine.  But  you're  not 
to  come  there,  you're  not  to  write  me,  you're  not  to 
remember  me  any  more  than  if  I'd  taken  a  vow  and 
gone  into  a  sisterhood.  I'm  lost,  Davie,  dear,  until 
I  come  back  and  bilng  my  baby  with  me.  Under 
stand?" 

J  did,  and  we  spoke  little  after  that.  She  was 
tired  to  exhaustion,  and  her  purpose,  I  understood, 
had  been  accomplished.  As  we  stood  together  at 
the  door — she  forbade  my  going  down  with  her — 
the  Madonna  blue  of  her  cloak  enveloping  her  in  an 
ineffable  way,  she  said  one  last  word: 

"Let  him  understand  fully  I  set  the  trap  for  him; 
but  tell  him,  if  you  can,  I'd  rather  have  died  than 
set  it.  Tell  him  if  he  wants  me — ah,  well,  Davie, 
I'm  giving  you  too  much.  Maybe  I  can  say  it  my 
self  some  time.  Good-by." 

The  beautiful  hand  lay  stanchly  in  mine,  and  while 
I  held  it  I  tried  to  say  something  adequate,  but 
couldn't  manage  it. 


A  CITIZEN  AND  HIS  WIFE 

"Anne,  you're  a  great  creature.  You're  as  great 
as  the  Roman  mothers  we  hear  about." 

She  shook  her  head.  A  little  hurt  smile  moved 
her  lips. 

"Ah,"  she  said,  "maybe  they  had  plain  sailing. 
They  weren't  traitors  too." 

I  stood  and  looked  on  her,  a  vision  of  gold  and 
blue  going  down  my  stairs,  and  did  not  follow  her. 
At  the  door  she  turned,  looked  up  at  me,  and  smiled 
— a  full  smile,  knowing,  I  suppose,  how  I  should  keep 
the  picture  of  her — opened  my  door  and  was  gone. 
And  in  an  instant  I  heard  the  carriage  taking  her 
away.  .  .  . 

I  am  a  patient  dog  of  a  man,  and  in  the  eleven 
days  I  had  no  word  from  her  I  did  not  seek  her,  I 
did  not  even  look  at  the  address  she  had  given  me. 
I  only  tried  to  send  her  my  flooding,  enfolding  love. 
And  every  day  I  went  past  his  house  in  the  reputable 
street,  looked  up  at  its  reticent  windows,  and  tried 
to  fix  on  my  own  immediate  action  when  the  master 
of  it  should  return.  For  eleven  days  this  continued. 
This  morning  is  the  morning  of  the  thirteenth,  and 
I  am  waiting  for  the  master  of  the  house.  He  has 
been  summoned.  He  has  been  told,  as  I  was  told 
forty-eight  hours  ago,  that  Anne,  wife  of  Louis 
Fieldman,  died  in  hospital  at  midnight,  she  and  her 
infant  son. 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

"MR.  HARRY  has  come,  miss,"  said  the  maid, 
hurrying  in,  with  deepened  color,  to  announce  a 
name  dedicated  in  that  household  to  general  worship. 

Miss  Evelyn  May,  Harry's  great-aunt,  given  over 
to  a  mild  enjoyment  of  the  sunny  morning-room,  laid 
down  her  book  and  turned  upon  the  woman  a  face 
of  surprised  interrogation. 

"  Harry?     Not  Harry !     He  is  in  France." 

"Mr.  Harry,  miss.  He's  down  in  the  library. 
The  boat  got  in  at  five." 

"Show  him  up,"  said  the  old  lady.  There  was  a 
warm  excitement  in  her  look.  "Or,  no.  Tell  him 
to  wait  there.  I'll  come  down."  She  rose,  shook 
out  her  draperies  and  turned  to  the  tall  glass.  This 
was  in  many  respects  an  amazing  old  woman.  For 
"one  thing,  she  had  resolved  early  that,  although  she 
wrote  books,  she  would  never  incur  the  odium  earned 
by  a  slattern  sisterhood.  She  had  been  softly  pretty 
in  youth,  and  a  fresh  good  health  had  lasted  her  like 
a  magic  mantle.  Her  age  was  exquisite  in  its  care 
and  finish.  All  her  appointments  were  significantly 
fine,  yet  with  no  specious  hint  in  them  of  a  desire  to 
push  back  the  hands  a  point  upon  the  dial.  They 
were  of  no  type  save  that  of  beauty.  Her  small  face 
still  held  a  tinge  of  pink,  her  pompadoured  hair 
shone  with  a  lovely  lustre,  and  her  white  house-dress 

122 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

was  a  wonder  of  old  lace.  The  look  she  gave  herself 
now  was  critical,  not  admiring,  and  she  turned  away 
from  the  glass  the  moment  its  use  had  been  accom 
plished.  Then,  holding  up  her  draperies  in  one  deli 
cate  hand,  she  went  down  to  the  library,  where 
impatiently,  in  the  morning  sunshine,  Harry  was 
awaiting  her.  He  met  her  at  the  door  and  kissed 
both  her  hands  before  accepting  her  proffered  wel 
come.  He  was  tall  and  brown,  with  a  free  glance 
warm  with  all  the  confidence  of  youth. 

"Well,  my  own  child,"  said  Miss  Evelyn,  following 
him  to  the  sofa,  where  they  sat  side  by  side,  holding 
each  other's  hands  like  playmates,  "what  are  you 
here  for?" 

"I  got  in  this  morning,  Aunt  Ev."  He  said  it 
imploringly.  "Don't  scold  me." 

"  Scold  you !  I  didn't  want  you  to  stay  over  there. 
You  went  for  fun.  Haven't  you  had  it?  " 

"I  mean,  don't  wonder,  don't  think  anything  is 
odd.  They'll  be  here  in  half  an  hour." 

"They?" 

"I've  made  some  friends.  I'm  bringing  them  to 
see  you." 

"People  you  met  on  the  steamer?" 

"No,  no,  Aunt  Evelyn, — in  France.  A  French 
gentleman  and — his  granddaughter."  The  beautiful 
ingenuousness  of  his  face,  its  air  of  quick  appeal, 
stirred  and  enlightened  her. 

"Oh,"  she  breathed  corroboratively,  "his  grand 
daughter."  Then  she  laid  the  other  hand  on  his. 
"Dear  child,"  she  said,  "I'm  so  glad." 


1S4  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

He  was  eager  to  repudiate  her  approval  in  the 
first  fulness  of  it. 

"No,"  he  insisted,  "don't  be  glad,  not  altogether 
glad — yet.  You  see,  we  don't — so  far,  her  grand 
father  and  I— quite  hit  it  off." 

"  Her  grandfather?     Hasn't  she  anything  nearer?  " 

"No.  She's  in  his  charge.  He  approves  of  me. 
He  likes  me,  man  to  man;  but  he  wanted  her  to 
marry  in  France,  and  so  he's  come  with  me  to — well, 
to  look  me  up,  you  know.  I  think  he's  nervous  about 
the  whole  thing.  He  wants  to  do  his  utmost  to  break 
it  off  without  taking  the  responsibility  of  doing  it. 
He  won't  really  do  it,  because  he's  a  good  fellow,  and 
she — well,  she  won't  let  him." 

"No,"  said  Miss  Evelyn,  in  the  most  delicately 
comprehending  vein,  "I  see.  She  wouldn't  let  him." 

The  young  man  gave  an  awkward  little  laugh;  yet 
there  was  a  proud  assurance  in  his  bearing. 

"She's  a  nice  girl,  Aunt  Evelyn,"  he  said,  answer 
ing  her  tone. 

"But  she  isn't  over  here,  too?"  suggested  Miss 
Evelyn  interrogatively. 

He  nodded,  his  eyes  quite  glowing  with  reminis 
cence  of  the  voyage  with  her — six  days  and  seven 
moonlit  nights  of  fun  and  rhapsody. 

"What  does  she  come  for?  You  say  she  doesn't 
want  to  break  it  off?" 

Again  he  laughed,  remembering  the  Frenchman's 
unprofitable  resistance  in  the  face  of  a  girl's  decision. 

"He  never  thought  of  her  coming.  She  would 
do  it." 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  125 

"That  sounds  American.  What's  her  name, 
dear?" 

"Angelique."  He  gave  the  name  the  circumflex 
of  a  caress.  "Angelique  de  Trouville." 

"Trouville!" 

"Yes."  His  answer  to  her  glance  was  one  of 
pride.  "You've  hit  it,  Aunt  Ev.  It's  the  poet's 
granddaughter . ' ' 

"Armand  de  Trouville!" 

Her  voice  had  the  sweep  of  meanings  too  manifold 
for  the  compass  of  one  word.  It  made  the  name  elo 
quent  in  rich  suggestion. 

The  young  man  nodded  in  his  pride  in  having  done 
so  admirably  toward  satisfying  her  instincts  with  his 
own. 

"Armand  de  Trouville,"  he  repeated — "the  man 
that  wrote  the  lyrics.  The  man  that  other  French 
man  came  over  here  to  lecture  about  when  I  was  in 
college.  Yes,  if  you  please.  And  I  should  say  he'd 
be  here  inside  of  ten  minutes."  She  looked  a  blank- 
ness  of  wonder  that  made  him  laugh  and  then  con 
sider  her.  He  patted  her  hand  affectionately. 
"Don't  flinch,  Aunt  Ev,"  he  counselled.  "He's 
a  big  gun,  but  no  bigger  than  you.  He  knows  about 
you,  too.  I  got  your  books  for  him,  and  he  read  'em 
on  the  steamer.  He  longs  to  see  you." 

The  bell  rang  below,  and  they  continued  staring. 
The  woman  was  white  with  some  unexplained  in 
tensity  of  feeling;  the  young  man  quivered  with  im 
patience  to  meet  his  happy  fate.  He  listened. 

"Mary's  taking  them  into  the  red  room,"  he  said. 


126  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

"Angelique  is  with  him."  Then,  catching  the  ex 
pression  of  her  face,  he  added  hastily:  "But  she 
sha'n't  come  up.  I'll  go  down  and  take  her  to  walk 
while  he  has  his  interview." 

She  smiled  a  little  then.  "Is  that  what  modern 
French  girls  do?"  she  asked.  "Go  to  walk  alone 
with  young  men  in  strange  cities?  They  didn't  do 
that  in  the  novels." 

"Angelique  will."  He  nodded  in  hilarious  con 
fidence.  "He  won't  let  her,  but  she  will." 

Again  he  put  her  hands  hastily  to  his  lips  and  hur 
ried  out  of  the  room  as  Mary  entered  with  a  card. 
A  moment  later  Mary  appeared  again,  after  her 
return  down-stairs,  ushering  in  Monsieur  de  Trou- 
ville. 

Evelyn  May  had  in  the  meantime  not  given  a 
thought  to  her  looks  or  the  turbulence  of  her  mind. 
This  was  not  so  much  a  meeting  with  a  distinguished 
caller  as  an  incredible  spiritual  experience,  one  that 
might  be  the  commonplace  of  paradise,  but  not  of 
earth.  She  was  standing  when  he  entered  the  room, 
ready  to  greet  him  with  a  fine  composure.  He  was 
exactly  what  she  had  expected  to  find  him,  save  that 
the  lustre  of  the  eyes,  the  point  of  light  in  them,  was 
something  which  even  the  faithful  sun  could  not  re 
produce.  He  was  tall,  well  poised,  and  graceful,  with 
a  composure  of  his  own.  He  was  spoken  of  as  a  giant 
among  Frenchmen,  but  his  size,  to  her  partial  mind, 
contributed  to  his  simplicity  and  gentleness.  The 
profile,  beautiful  enough  for  a  coin,  the  close  gray 
mustache,  the  iron-gray  hair,  she  was  prepared  for 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  127 

them  all  through  portraiture,  and  yet  the  reality  of 
the  man  brought  her  a  wistful  sense  of  satisfaction 
close  upon  the  pangs  of  youth.  He  bowed  over  her 
hand,  and  pronounced  her  full  name  with  "Made 
moiselle"  prefixed;  and  then,  ceremoniously  waiting 
until  he  had  seen  her  placed,  and  even  bringing  a 
footstool  for  her,  in  quick  divination,  he  seated  him 
self  and  leaned  forward  to  say,  with  a  sudden  smile, 
and  in  faultless  English  made  piquant  by  the  slight 
est  accent: 

"Your  books  are  beautiful." 

"So  is  your  English,"  she  returned,  smiling  back 
at  him  with  a  sense  of  old  acquaintanceship. 

"My  mother  was  an  Englishwoman.  She  had 
been  on  the  stage.  Then,  too,  I  was  at  Oxford." 

"I  know." 

"You  know?"     He  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"We  all  know  everything  about  you,  monsieur. 
An  author  as  famous  as  you  lives  under  glass." 

"And  you?" — he  drew  her  again  into  kinship. 
"Do  these  clever  American  people  know  about  you 
also?  Your  family  tree,  what  you  have  for  break 
fast?" 

She  met  his  banter  with  a  laugh, 

"Pretty  nearly.  But  there  are  a  great  many  like 
me.  No  one  is  like  you." 

He  rose  to  make  his  bow. 

"I  thank  you,  mademoiselle,"  he  said,  with  the 
humility  she  expected  of  him.  Then,  as  he  seated 
himself,  it  seemed  to  be  to  settle  to  conclusions  bar 
ring  raillery.  "I  find  in  you,"  he  continued,  with 


128  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

a  judicial  firmness,  looking  past  her  as  if  he  sought 
an  impersonal  attitude  of  mind  forbidding  intimate 
interchange, — "I  find  in  your  books  an  extraordinary 
beauty.  They  are  simple.  They  are  true.  If  I 
could  have  written  in  English,  I  should  have  liked 
to  do  them,  word  for  word." 

She  was  breathing  faster.  Her  face  had  taken 
on  a  flush  that  filled  its  lines  and  softened  it  to  a 
transcript  of  what  it  had  been  years  before.  She 
spoke  rapidly,  her  hands  accenting  the  words  and 
speaking  with  her. 

"Listen,  monsieur.  It  is  as  if  you  did  write  them. 
Forty  years  ago  I  had  not  heard  of  you.  Forty 
years!  How  recklessly  we  speak  of  years  when  we 
are  old !  Thirty-nine  years  ago  I  heard  of  you  for 
the  first  time.  I  was  discontented,  sad.  I  was 
writing  books,  and  nobody  wanted  them.  Then  I 
read  your  Souvenir.  It  made  me  over.  At  once  I 
had  hope,  courage.  The  blood  came  back  into  my 
veins.  The  sun  shone  in  at  the  window,  the  birds 
sang — monsieur,  I  was  alive."  Involuntarily  she 
was  adopting  a  style  of  speech  alien  to  her  own.  It 
was  as  if  she  tried  to  make  herself  more  intelligible, 
not  to  his  ear,  but  to  his  mind,  through  little  re 
membered  notes,  echoes  from  his  own  fluent  style. 

He  had  caught  the  fire  of  her  revelation. 

"Then,"  said  he,  "I  will  tell  you  what  happened. 
Your  second  book  came  out  just  before  my  next  one; 
but  they  might  have  been  written  by  the  same  hand. 
Not  in  the  style,  but  the  intention.  And  so  it  fol 
lowed.  You  have  not  written  so  many  books  as  I, 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  129 

but  in  your  essays  and  my  verse  we  have  gone  step 
and  step,  hand  in  hand.  Is  it  not  so,  mademoi 
selle?" 

She  answered  gently  and  with  a  quiet  pride,  a  little 
smile  curving  the  corners  of  her  mouth. 

"  Oh,  I  know  that  is  so !     I  have  always  known  it." 

"I  didn't  know  it  until  last  week,  when  I  began 
to  read  your  books  with — what  shall  I  tell  you? — 
with  a  boredom,  an  exasperation  I  cannot  describe. 
You  were  a  species  I  hate — a  woman  that  meddles 
with  the  arts  to  please  her  vanity,  to  stultify  her 
heart.  Oh,  I  know,  mademoiselle,  those  women  are 
not  all  so.  There  were  the  great  ones.  My  homage 
to  them.  My  homage  to  you  also,  mademoiselle — 
to  you  also." 

Again  he  got  up  to  make  his  bow,  and  she  rose  also 
and  accepted  it  with  a  curtsy  she  never  remembered 
having  tried  before.  But  it  came  naturally.  She 
had  a  double  consciousness  of  being  herself  and  also 
a  lady  in  a  long  hall  in  France,  with  garlands  upon 
the  wall,  and  other  ladies  and  other  courtly  gentle 
men,  and  mirrors  all  about  them  reduplicating  their 
graces  and  their  charm.  It  had  all  happened  before, 
though  perhaps  only  in  her  mind,  where  he  had  dwelt 
so  long. 

"But  you  knew  it,"  he  said,  as  they  again  sat 
regarding  each  other.  "You  knew  we  were  twin 
workfellows?" 

"Oh,  yes!"  Again  she  spoke  quietly.  "I  read 
you.  Everybody  did,  you  were  so  great.  You 
couldn't  have  read  me  possibly.  There  was  never 


ISO  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

more  than  one  edition  of  me  for  any  book,  and  no 
body  bought  that.  The  likeness  between  what  we 
said  was  so  marked  that  if  your  books  had  come  out 
first,  I  shouldn't  have  published  mine.  Fortunately, 
in  point  of  time,  you  kept  a  step  behind  me." 

"You  knew  it,"  he  repeated.  The  tone  held  an 
ingenuous  reproach.  He  followed  it  with  the  climax: 
"And  you  did  nothing!  If  I  had  been  the  one  to 
know,  I  should  have  come  to  find  you." 

"Ah,"  she  breathed,  in  an  involuntary  betrayal 
beyond  anything  she  had  imagined  in  her  dreams  of 
what  might  happen  if  she  should  meet  him  in  some 
other  life,  "I  went  and  I  did  not  find  you." 

"You  came  to  France?" 

She  clasped  her  hands  upon  her  knee,  swaying  in 
her  slenderness  like  a  girl.  She  spoke  reflectively, 
judging  from  point  to  point  how  much  to  tell. 

"I  am  seventy  years  old,  monsieur." 

"That  is  nothing,"  he  interrupted  gallantly. 
"I  am  seventy-one.  I  am  young.  We  are  very 
young,  both  of  us." 

"I  am  seventy  years  old.  When  I  read  your 
Souvenir  and  it  illuminated  my  life,  I  felt  perhaps 
older  than  I  do  now.  I  had  loved  a  man.  I  thought 
I  loved  him,  but  I  presently  found  out  that  it  was 
not  the  man;  it  was  his  youth,  reenforcing  my  youth. 
When  I  found  out  what  it  was  to  him,  I — "  She 
shrugged  her  shoulders  in  a  quick  distaste.  "I  do 
not  think  of  this,  monsieur,"  she  continued,  with 
a  proud  glance  at  him.  "It  is  tawdry  to  me,  and 
I  do  not  accept  anything  tawdry  for  my  life.  But 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  131 

at  that  time  it  soiled  the  whole  earth.  Then  I  read 
your  book.  I  said,  Here  is  somebody  great  enough 
to  guide  me.  I  began  to  think  your  thoughts.  I 
walked  in  the  path  you  had  hewn  out.  Presently 
my  life  was  reconstructed.  You  had  made  me." 

"But  France,"  he  urged.  His  eyes  also  spoke. 
They  had  gained  in  their  luminous  intensity.  They 
beckoned,  they  insisted  with  a  force  that  was  the 
very  gentleness  of  power.  "You  came  to  France?" 

"  I  went  to  France.  By  that  time  I  fancied  I  knew 
you  very  well.  I  spent  a  month  in  Tours." 

"In  Tours?     A  mile  away  from  me!" 

She  smiled,  in  wistful  memory. 

"  I  waited  a  week,  monsieur.  I  asked  no  one  about 
you,  and  then,  in  the  beginning  of  your  fame,  fewer 
personalities  were  broadcast  about  authors  than  at 
present,  when  every  farthing  dip  has  its  reflector. 
I  knew  only  that  you  lived  on  a  beautiful  road — 
ah,  yes,  I  remember  the  name,"  she  interrupted  him, 
as  he  was  about  to  form  the  word.  "I  walked  there 
every  day,  only  never  so  far  as  your  chateau.  But 
one  day,  after  I  had  been  there  a  week,  I  started  out, 
my  two  poor  little  books  in  my  hand,  to  make  an 
offering  to  you.  I  reached  your  gate,  my  feet  falter 
ing  under  me.  There  was  a  high  garden  wall.  Be 
fore  I  could  ring,  I  heard  a  voice  behind  the  wall. 
It  was  a  woman — singing." 

"My  wife!    It  must  have  been  my  wife." 

"Yes,  monsieur.  You  were  married.  I  had  known 
that,  of  course,  before.  Your  wife  was  Lisette?  of 
the  Opera— La  Belle  I4sett§," 


132  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

"But  why  did  you  not  ring?  Or — you  were  not 
admitted?" 

"I  did  not  ring,  monsieur." 

"Why?" 

"I  don't  know,"  she  answered,  simply.  "I 
turned  back  to  Tours,  and  the  next  week  I  went 
home." 

He  got  up  and  paced  the  floor  from  window  to 
window,  snatching  a  glance  from  each,  as  he  ap 
proached  it,  at  the  bright  American  sky.  That  day 
there  was  no  veiling  atmosphere.  It  seemed  to  him 
without,  as  within,  a  world  of  clear,  bright  revela 
tion. 

"What  year  was  that?"  he  asked  her,  turning 
suddenly. 

She  told  him. 

"My  wife  left  me  the  next  January,"  he  said 
curtly.  "  Did  you  hear  that?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"Everybody  heard  of  it,  in  France,  in  America, 
in  England.  I  was  well  known  enough  by  that  time 
to  have  it  count."  He  sat  down,  and  remained  there 
in  silence,  his  hands  hanging  loosely  clasped  between 
his  knees,  his  eyes  upon  the  floor.  Presently  he 
looked  up  at  her.  "I  have  not  spoken  of  it,"  he 
said,  simply,  "to  any  one,  till  now." 

She  shook  her  head,  and  again  there  was  silence 
between  them,  broken  at  length  by  his  voice, 
abruptly  shaken. 

"Have  you  known  about  her  since?" 

"No." 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  133 

"She  died,  in  Hungary,  six  years  after  they  went 
away  together.  They  were  happy,  I  think.  She  re 
gretted  nothing,  not  even  her  child.  He  was  with 
her  to  the  last." 

"You  had  her  child?"  she  ventured. 

"Yes.  She  grew  up  a  kind,  stolid  creature.  She 
took  back  to  our  peasant  ancestry.  Then  when 
Angelique  was  born,  she  died." 

"Ah,  Angelique!     We  were  to  talk  of  Angelique." 

"Dear  mademoiselle!"  He  laughed  outright. 
"How  far  Angelique  seems  from  the  loves  and  heart 
breaks  of  old  years!" 

"Yet  it  is  the  same,"  she  protested  loyally,  with  a 
quick  thought  of  Harry.  "  It  is  just  the  same." 

"The  spring  renews  itself,  you  think.  Yet  you 
know  as  well  as  I  that  even  the  spring  is  different 
sometimes.  They  tell  me — your  Harry  told  me — 
that  your  American  autumn  is  sometimes  yellow, 
sometimes  soft  and  sere.  So  with  the  spring,  made 
moiselle — so  with  the  spring.  Tell  me,V — he  fixed 
his  eyes  upon  her  in  keen  interrogation, — "  when  you 
knew  my  wife  had  left  me,  were  you  sorry?" 

"I  was  very  sorry.  My  heart  ached  for  you.  I 
was  afraid  it  would  cripple  you,  your  genius,  your 
beautiful  art." 

"Did  it  cripple  me?" 

"No,  monsieur.  It  changed  you,  but  it  did  not 
cripple  you." 

"  How  was  I  changed?  " 

"You  were  harder.  It  was  the  hand  of  iron  that 
wrote,  not  the  supple,  human  hand.  Ah,  Monsieur 


134  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

de  Trouville,  you  clung  through  everything  to  your 
old  ideals,  but  you  were  no  longer  confident  that  they 
would  wear.  You  used  to  say,  Life  is  thus.  Now 
you  said,  Life  should  be  thus.  You  had  lost  faith 
that  it  could  be." 

"You  knew  me  well,"  he  brooded.  "You  knew 
me  well." 

"That  was  in  the  essays,  where  you  spoke  with 
voluntary  authority;  but  in  your  poems  the  spirit 
took  possession  of  you  and  kindled  the  old  flame. 
I  used  to  smile,  monsieur,  over  the  difference.  I 
used  to  laugh  sometimes  in  triumph,  as  a  mother 
might  over  a  son  who  couldn't  escape  his  heritage, 
and  say  to  myself,  'It  is  not  lost  yet/  ' 

He  beat  the  table  beside  him,  for  a  moment,  with 
an  impatient  hand.  His  brows  were  clouded.  They 
smoothed  out  with  the  conclusion  of  his  thought. 

"I  will  tell  you,"  he  said,  "some  things  I  have  not 
told  anybody.  I  give  you  the*  key,  mademoiselle, 
but  only  because  you  have*  it  already — one  exactly 
like  it.  The  great  quickener  of  life,  in  one  form  or 
another,  is  what  we  call  love." 

"Yes,  I  know." 

"It  has  many  forms;  but  its  ecstasy  is  the  love 
between  men  and  women.  That  is  the  blossom,  the 
topmost  blossom  on  the  tree  of  life,  remote,  defended 
by  a  thousand  natural  impulses.  It  is  the  torch, 
always  kept  burning  and  passed  along  from  mother 
to  daughter,  from  father  to  son.  I  felt  that  love, 
mademoiselle.  I  thought  I  felt  it.  But  when  I 
found  it  had  been  in  her  nothing  but  the  quick  warn) 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  135 

instinct  that  comes  also  to  the  birds,  when  I  found 
she  could  settle  on  another  branch,  so  that  she  found 
it  safe, — I,  too,  ceased  to  love,  mademoiselle.  I 
was  not  more  constant  than  she."  He  looked  at  her 
with  the  questioning  face  of  a  child  who  has  done 
what  may  have  been  wrong,  though  he  has  no  way  of 
estimating  how  wrong  it  is.  "You  are  disappointed 
in  me?"  he  asked,  entreatingly,  at  length.  "You 
would  like  it  better  if  I  could  say  I  had  clung  to  my 
dream,  even  after  she  broke  it  for  me?" 

She  shook  her  head.  There  were  tears  in  her 
eyes,  and  she  found  it  better  not  to  answer  him  di 
rectly. 

"I  know  what  you  felt,  then,"  she  said,  "what 
you  resolved  to  feel.  You  said:  'It  is  not  possible 
for  that  dream  ever  to  come  true,  for  any  man,  for 
any  woman.  Years  from  now,  if  there  are  giants 
on  the  earth,  it  may  come  true,  or  in  some  place  where 
there  are  angels;  but  not  here  with  us.' ' 

"So  I  stopped  seeking,"  he  said  confirmingly. 
"If  I  had  believed  there  was  a  mate  for  me,  do  you 
think  I  should  have  rested  till  I  found  her?" 

"No,"  she  answered,  in  a  low  tone,  "you  would 
not  have  rested.  But  perhaps  it  is  better  that  you 
gave  up  that  quest  and  starved  your  heart  and  wrote 
your  books." 

He  got  up  and  stood  towering  before  her.  "No," 
he  said, — "no.  Don't  make  that  mistake.  It  may 
be  better  for  us  to  be  cut  and  pruned;  but  if  we  can, 
if  there  is  the  sap  in  us,  it  is  also  better  that  we  should 
answer  to  the  knife,  and  put  out  blossoms  on  new 


136  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

branches.  No,  child,  no,  Starve  till  you  get  the 
food  you  need,  and  then  eat  it.  Don't  push  it 
away  from  you  because  you  have  got  used  to  starv 
ing.  When  I  think  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth — "  He  paused,  and  she  took  up  the  prophecy. 

"I  know.  You  think  of  them  peopled  by  beauti 
ful  beings  whose  desires  can  be  satisfied  because 
they  run  in  one  channel  with  the  law.  Yes,  and  so 
do  I." 

"But  you  think  with  me  that  it  is  not  possible 
now,  as  the  world  is  to-day?" 

She  pondered  for  a  moment,  wondering,  he  could 
see,  with  that  prescience  of  her  that  was  as  natural 
now  as  any  familiar  habit  of  his  life,  if  she  could 
trust  her  real  Frenchman  as  she  had  been  wont  to 
trust  the  man  inhabiting  her  dreams.  The  decision 
made,  she  looked  up  at  him,  frankly  smiling. 

"No,  monsieur,"  she  said,  "I  do  not  think  that 
at  all." 

"I  knew  it.  I  saw  it  in  your  books.  You  are 
ending  your  life  with  the  same  belief  in  the  passion 
of  love  that  you  had  when  you  were  twenty." 

She  corrected  him  gently. 

"Not  the  same,  monsieur.  A  greater  belief  and 
better  grounded." 

"But  you  have  not — "  He  stopped,  and  she 
filled  out  the  broken  sentence. 

"No,  I  have  not  married.  But  I  have  lived.  I 
have  looked  on.  I  have  seen  the  bud  of  love  flower 
into  quiet  loyalty.  I  have  seen  pleasure  lost  in  hum 
ble  service." 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  1S7 

"Also,  you  have  seen  the  bud  blighted,  and  young 
liking  lost  in  self-love  or — deceit." 

"Yes.  But  it  is  all — ah,  monsieur,  it  is  only 
another  of  the  choices  we  are  given."  She  paused 
a  moment  and  looked  at  him  as  if  she  begged  indul 
gence  for  the  enormous  egotism  of  her  importunity, 
and  his  eyes  reassured  her.  For  him,  she  knew  at 
last,  as  for  her,  the  warmth  of  their  mutual  compre 
hension  had  melted  the  rigidities  of  speech,  and 
made  their  interchange  as  fluent  as  pure  thought. 

"Nothing  was  ever  so  generous,"  she  hurried  on, 
"as  the  Maker  of  this  earth.  'Take  it,'  He  said. 
'Use  it,  or  deface  it.  Plant  flowers,  or  let  it  go  to 
rack.  Do  anything  you  like — and  take  the  con 
sequences.'  Monsieur," — her  voice  faltered  a  little, 
— "that  is  how  it  is  with  love.  It  is  an  immense 
choice,  the  greatest  one  of  all.  We  can  make  some 
thing  beautiful,  or  something  tawdry." 

"But  if  we  begin  with  a  mistake?  " 

"Then  we  must  be  patient — or  maybe  plant 
again." 

"  I  did  not  plant  again.     And  you — " 

She  looked  past  him,  smiling,  wondering  if  it  mat 
tered  whether  he  understood.  Again  he  was  walk 
ing  back  and  forth  from  window  to  window.  At 
length  he  stopped  in  front  of  her. 

"Have  you  had,"  he  asked,  "a  happy  life?" 

"The  last  part  of  it.  The  first  was  tempestuous, 
full  of  hungers  and  discontent.  But  since  then — 
since  I  have  been  old,  monsieur,  I  have  been  happy." 

"Why?" 


138  THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE 

She  pondered.  Presently  she  looked  up  at  him 
in  a  smiling  candor. 

"I  am  not  sure.  Perhaps  it  is  that  after  we  have 
really  given  up  the  earth,  we  look  back  upon  it  and 
know  that  if  we  kept  one  great  loyalty  we  had  enough." 

"And  that  you  did.  You  kept  your  one  great 
loyalty." 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

Still  he  was  looking  down  at  her,  and  when  he 
spoke  his  voice  held  that  wistful  tenderness  devoted 
from  of  old  to  the  worship  of  women  and  children. 

"  What  finger  beckoned  me  to  you !  What  strange 
wind  blew  me  here  at  last!" 

She  looked  up  at  him  whimsically,  though  her 
eyes  had  tears  in  them. 

"Angelique,  monsieur.     It  was  Angelique." 

"Yes.  I  came  over  in  a  fit  of  irritation.  I 
hoped  I  should  find  him — your  Harry — undesirable 
in  some  way.  I  wanted  Angelique  to  marry  in  her 
own  country.  I  thought  it  would  be  safer — a  prac 
tical  alliance — than  this  spring  passion." 

"They  are  coming,  I  think,"  she  interrupted  him. 
"I  hear  voices  in  the  hall." 

He  was  smiling  at  her.     His  eyes  were  wet. 

"They  must  marry,"  he  said,  "the  boy  and  girl. 
You  will  like  Angelique.  She  has  the  best  of  her 
mother  in  her  and  the  best  of  me.  I  had  meant  to 
stay  here  a  week  only — "  He  paused,  facing  a  doubt, 
an  indecision  that  might  have  been  fostered  by  a 
younger  heart. 

But  the  woman  finished  for  him,  gravely. 


THE  TORCH  OF  LIFE  139 

"That  is  right,  monsieur.  You  will  go  back  next 
week,  and  take  her  with  you.  If  they  care  enough, 
they  can  wait,  six  months,  a  year.  Then  he  can  go 
to  France." 

"They  shall  marry,"  he  confirmed  himself,  mus 
ingly.  "We  will  pass  along  the  torch  to  them. 
They  shall  finish  what  we  began." 

She  nodded  gratefully. 

"I  say  what  we  began,"  he  went  on.  "But  it 
was  you  alone.  You  knew  me.  You  kept  your 
hand  on  me  and  steadied  me,  all  these  years.  It  is 
only  now  I  know  you." 

"It  is  the  same  thing,  monsieur.  One  hand  can 
keep  the  fire  burning,  if  it  is  faithful." 

There  were  light  steps  on  the  stairs,  and  a  gust  of 
laughter  was  borne  in  to  them  as  if  it  floated  like 
a  cloud  of  flower  incense  from  a  procession  of  the 
spring.  The  woman  rose  to  meet  her  guests. 
Monsieur  de  Trouville  put  out  his  hand,  and  she 
gave  hers  frankly.  He  spoke  in  haste,  because  the 
lilting  voices  were  so  near:  "It  is  your  gift  to  them — 
the  flaming  torch." 


x/ 

THE  TRYST 

THAT  a  man  nearing  forty  is  far  from  being  in  his 
right  mind  when  he  even  contemplates  an  excursion 
with  two  recently  married  couples,  one  of  the  brides 
being  she  whom  he  has  not  been  able  to  cease  loving 
with  an  ardor  intensified  by  the  certainty  that  he 
had  been  denied  his  chance  with  her  by  circumstance 
only,  bare  circumstance,  a  matter  of  staying  in  a 
place  eight  and  three-quarters  days  instead  of  nine, 
thereby  missing  her  by  a  train — this  is  pathologically 
evident.  I  was  the  man.  I  was  at  Naples,  with  no 
more  idea  that  Julia  and  her  young  husband  were 
there  for  an  ecstatic  minute  of  their  bridal  tour  than 
I  had  that  I  should  be  dining  with  them  in  a  kind 
of  enraged  content,  being  offered  fruit  from  her  soft 
finger-tips  I  would  have  died  to  kiss — I  let  myself 
go  now  in  the  telling  of  it  as  I  let  myself  go  mentally 
at  that  incredible  dinner,  since,  after  all,  there  has 
to  be  a  moment's  delirium  even  for  a  man  of  forty 
who  has  got  his  wound.  I  had  met  them  face  to 
face  in  the  street,  I  absurdly  chaffering  for  corals  I 
didn't  want,  only  to  spur  the  vendor's  verbal  acro 
batics,  and  then  meaning  to  go  on  to  the  Aquarium 
and  pretend  I  had  an  interest  in  fins  and  octopi, 
when  they  came  on  me,  the  radiant  four  of  them,  she 
and  her  Jack,  Billy  Petersham  and  his  new  wife, 
who  had  been  a  widow,  over-corseted  and  creaking. 

140 


THE  TRYST  141 

She  always,  in  spite  of  decency,  made  you  think  of 
her  stays,  and  I  never  saw  her  without  a  vague 
nautical  memory  that  stays  are  something  a  boat 
is  warped  into  or  warped  out  of,  and  I  never  could 
resist  the  certainty  that  she  had  got  in  and  stayed 
warped.  They  greeted  me,  three  of  them,  with  the 
hilarious  ecstasy  of  the  inordinately  joyous  crowded 
up  one  more  notch  of  bliss  by  the  spectacle  of  the 
enforcedly  abstemious  for  whom  the  cupboard  is 
bare  of 

"syrops  tinct  with  cinnamon" 
and  the  heavenly  manna  of  verified  illusion. 

"Dine  with  us,  old  boy,"  Jack  said  at  once,  and 
mentioned  the  gilded  hotel  on  the  height  where  I 
had  been  too  tame-spirited  to  go. 

I  looked  at  him  a  second  before  I  answered,  looked 
him  up  and  down  perhaps,  for  I  had  a  chance  to 
think  how  fresh-colored  his  face  was,  how  hued  by 
blood  so  good  and  so  new  that  it  might  have  run 
from  heavenly  founts,  how  white  his  teeth  were,  and 
how  his  honest  eyes  met  me  with  their  old  clarity 
and  kindness,  but  more — a  challenge,  perhaps,  to 
note  how  happy  he  was,  and  what  a  conqueror.  I 
noted  his  exquisite  clothes,  too,  his  lilac  tie — I  knew 
the  stockings  matched  it,  if  only  the  eye  could  have 
got  at  them — his  general  look  of  something  flowered 
out  in  the  spring.  He  was  a  splendor,  no  mistake. 
I  must  have  hesitated,  for  before  I  answered,  Julia 
was  holding  out  her  hand,  that  slender  hand  I 
knew  in  all  its  gloved  seclusion,  in  its  slim,  lovely 
length  as  it  fed  her  beautiful  lips — she  held  it  out  to 


142  THE  TRYST 

me,  and  I  took  it  and  forgot  Jack's  question  and  his 
tie.  I  only  stood  and  stared  into  that  face  I  had  so 
hungered  for — and  yet  I  had  seen  it  night  upon 
night,  framed  in  the  black  wall  of  darkness,  or  against 
the  moving  tapestry  of  my  shut  eyes — I  had  been 
seeing  it,  I  thought,  "every  day  i'  the  hour"  since 
she  had  been  reft  away  by  her  Jack;  but  only  God  He 
knew  how  horribly  I  had  been  longing  to  set  eyes 
once  more  upon  its  fair  reality.  She  was  above  all 
women  beautiful,  not  because  I  loved  her,  but  chiefly 
that  she  was  so  kind.  The  faint  flush,  the  fineness 
of  her  cheek,  the  glory  of  hair  all  gold  and  rarer,  the 
wistful  look  of  her  blue  eyes :  these  a  lover,  if  he  had 
been  also  a  poet,  might  inadequately  have  sung. 
But  nobody  in  this  generation,  nobody  but  a  dead 
and  gone  cavalier  who  clapped  his  sword  in  scabbard 
to  write  a  lyric  explaining  why  swords  must  be  out 
and  love-knots  temporarily  put  by,  only  he  could 
have  hit  off  that  human  look  of  hers,  of  sympathy, 
of  compassion,  of  knowing  exactly  how  the  under 
dog  felt,  with  even  a  surprising  hint  of  having  been 
herself,  at  some  time,  desperately  at  odds  with 
fortune  and  now  remembering  it.  This  was  not 
for  me,  I  thought,  as  I  stood  stupidly  worshipping 
her.  Julia  Dove  never  had,  I  was  sure,  the  least 
suspicion  of  my  love  for  her.  How  could  she,  when 
she  was  engaged  the  day  I  met  her,  and  I  must  have 
looked  to  her  a  dry  old  hortus  siccus  of  emotions  as  I 
was,  pelting  round  after  historical  data,  even  more 
desiccated  than  was  entirely  just,  seen  through  the 
lilac  mistjs  pf  Jack's  ties  and  hose  and  bis 


THE  TRYST  US 

glance.  But  now  her  look  seemed  to  say  inexplic 
ably:  "Dear  man,  be  comforted.  You  are  shock 
ingly  lonesome.  So  am  I." 

There  I  pulled  myself  up  in  my  unlawful  imagin 
ings.  She  couldn't  be.  The  candid  glance  meant 
only  so  she  once  had  been  before  she  found  him 
and  twined  her  soul  with  his.  But  all  she  really 
said,  independently  of  her  kind  eyes,  was  this,  oh,  in 
the  dearest  voice: 

"Do,  Mr.  Olmstead.     Do  come." 

I  dropped  her  hand. 

"Thank  you,"  said  I,  with  the  abruptness  of  one 
recalled.  "I  will." 

So  we  five  dined  together  in  the  splendor  of  the 
Bertolini,  and  sat  on  the  terrace  afterward  like  funny 
modern  gods  on  Olympus,  and  watched  the  lights 
flaming  out  and  twinkling  out  below,  and  heard 
faint  touches  of  music,  and  knew  the  multitudinous 
life  of  the  city  was  dancing  itself  blind  and  mad, 
and  doing  the  little  tasks  that  bought  its  bread,  and 
playing  its  pageant  because  its  blood  ran  so  fast  it 
couldn't  help  it,  and  yet  thriftily,  since  the  foreigners 
paid  for  piping.  Mrs.  Billy  and  I  did  most  of  the 
talking.  I  fancied  she  was  rather  glad  of  a  prosaic 
new  element,  she  who  was  almost  forty  herself,  and 
getting  painfully  attached  to  succulent  dishes  and 
talk  about  reducing  one's  self  and,  on  this  occasion, 
my  immunity  from  care  because  nature  turned  me 
out  so  lean.  Her  husband  smoked  and  stared  at 
her  through  the  dusk,  glorifying  her  into  the  eternal 
beautiful,  I  have  no  doubt,  because  she  was  new  and 


144  THE  TRYST 

his;  and  Julia  looked  at  the  city  and  said  nothing. 
It  was  my  one  hour,  not  to  shine,  not  to  acquire,  not 
to  do  in  any  sense  a  memorable  deed,  but  to  sit  in 
the  same  visible  universe  with  Julia  Dove.  Once  I 
got  a  little  drunk  with  it,  the  wonder  of  it,  the  inef 
fable  compassion  of  the  upper  powers  to  allow  me 
this  heavenly  anodyne  before  my  heart  beat  itself 
out  with  lonesome  misery,  and  I  found  myself 
repeating  idiotically: 

"'Only  to  kiss  the  air—'"  There  I  stopped,  and 
got  hold  of  myself  for  a  fool;  but  Mrs.  Billy  clacked 
in  with  her  complacent  note,  perfectly  ready  for  all 
challenges  of  give  or  take: 

"What's  that,  Mr.  Olmstead?     Is  it  a  new  song? " 

"Not  absolutely  new,"  said  I  stupidly,  "though 
it's  for  all  time.  It's  been  running  in  my  head. 
I've  been  trying  to  get  the  last  line." 

"Why,  I  know  it,"  said  Julia,  with  no  hesitation 
in  her  clear  young  voice: 

Only  to  kiss  that  air 
That  lately  kissed  thee. 
I  know  it  all." 

And  then,  as  if  the  immortals  loved  me,  and  meant 
to  accord  me  one  more  blissful  cup  to  live  on  till  I 
died  of  surfeit  and  despair,  she  sat  here  with  the 
lights  of  Naples  below  her  in  a  seemly  humbleness 
and  the  stars  shining  like  her  own  galaxy,  and  re 
peated  it  all. 

"Shall  I  write  it  down  for  you?"  she  asked,  at 
the  end. 

"No,"  said  I.     "I  shall  remember."     I  got  on  my 


THE  TRYST  145 

feet.  I'd  had  all  I  could  carry.  "Good-night,"  I 
said. 

Then  I  was  wishing  them  joy  all  round  —  joy  and 
a  fortunate  trip,  in  a  manner  that,  I  hope,  satisfied 
the  lightly  conventional;  but  Jack,  for  some  reason, 
would  not  hear  of  losing  me. 

"Breakfast  with  us,"  he  said.  I  have  had  an 
idea  since  that  because  I  was  staying  at  a  meagre 
pension  below  he  had  confirmed  his  estimate  of  my 
poverty.  "Then  come  on  to  Pompeii." 

I  didn't  want  Pompeii,  or  any  further  spectacle 
of  marital  felicity.  I  remembered  the  gentle  eternal 
sunlit  gloom  of  the  dead  city,  as  I  had  seen  it  before, 
and  it  appeared  to  me  that,  superadded  to  my  own 
grounded  sense  that  life  itself  was  pretty  well  over, 
I  should  as  soon  choose  an  after-dinner  stroll  in  the 
catacombs. 

"Awfully  good  of  you,"  I  said,  "but  I'm  due  at 
Capri.  I'm  afraid  I  shall  have  to  be  leaving  rather 
early  in  the  morning  to  make  it." 

I  was  due  there  because  I  had  to  have  a  pretext, 
and  that  would  serve  as  well  as  any. 

"Who's  at  Capri?"  inquired  Mrs.  Billy  skittishly, 
and  I  tried  dismally  to  look  as  if  somebody  very 
fetching  indeed  might  be  there;  whereupon  she  for 
got  she  was  mated  and  settled  again,  and  bridled  in 
the  old  way.  "  Well,  we'll  let  you  off  from  Pompeii," 
she  conceded,  "but  you  simply  must  meet  us  at 


Immediately,  not  because  she  said  it,  for  what  she 
said  meant  to  me,  as  it  did  to  every  man  save  Billy, 


146  THE  TRYST 

less  than  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot — for  I 
suppose  a  sufficient  crackling  might  boil  the  dinner, 
and  Billy  is  the  raw  material  that  boils  easily — but 
for  some  reason  hidden  even  from  that  inner  self 
which  is  forever  hearing  unexpected  calls  and  chal 
lenges,  immediately  I  felt  mad  to  go  to  Psestum. 

"Yes,"  said  Jack,  from  his  perennial  desire  to 
challenge  everybody  to  "come  on"  whither  he  is 
going,  "yes,  come  on  to  Psestum.  That'll  be  Thurs 
day.  We  make  it  from  La  Cava." 

I  knew  Cava  of  the  Tyrrhenians,  all  blue  moun 
tain  and  silent  valley  and  hills  and  hollow  distances 
and  balconies  moonlighted.  And  now  it  was  full 
moon,  and  my  merciless  fancy  pictured  me  Julia  in 
the  sea  of  it,  and  Jack — commonplace  Jack,  yet  he 
was  young! — he  adoring  her.  I  would  have  none  of 
Cava.  But  Psestum  was  still  drawing  me;  it  had 
me  with  an  iron  grip. 

"We're  doomed  to  Psestum  because  Julia  wants 
it,"  said  Jack  fondly,  with  the  husband's  young 
pride  of  being  under  dominion.  "Think  it  over, 
Jule.  It's  as  full  of  malaria  as  it  can  stick.  Come 
on  to  Capri  with  Olmstead,  and  I'll  give  you  a  black 
pearl." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Julia,  in  her  dear  voice  pierced 
with  a  thrill  of  something  I  had  never  heard  in  it — 
resistance,  maybe,  not  of  him  but  for  the  sake  of 
what  she  was  obliged  to  do.  "I  have  to  go  there," 

" Have  to,  child?     Why  have  you? " 

I  looked  at  her  and  wondered -why:  not  from  wil- 
fulness,  for  that  wasn't  in  her,  but  for  some  reason 


THE  TRYST  147 

so  rigid  that  not  only  could  she  not  permit  it  to  be 
withstood,  but  she  herself,  from  its  unknown  power, 
could  not  withstand  it.  Now  the  fair  territory  of 
her  face  was  unfeignedly  perplexed. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  owned.  "I  have  to  go, 
that's  all.  I  know  I  have  to." 

"  Gammon, "  said  Jack,  still  fondly.  If  it  had  been 
less  than  a  lover's  acquiescent  pride  I  couldn't  have 
suffered  him.  "What  if  we  let  you  go  alone?" 

"I  should  have  to,  then,"  she  said,  in  the  same 
serious  wistfulness  of  wonder.  "I  can't  bear  to  be 
so  obstinate;  but  truly  I've  got  to  go." 

Jack  laughed.  He  liked  her  sudden  tyranny,  and 
took  her  hand  and  swung  it  back  and  forth. 

"  All  right  then,"  said  he,  "  we've  got  to  go.  Olm- 
stead,  how  about  you?  Can't  you  reconsider?" 

"Assuredly,"  I  said,  with  no  volition,  it  seemed  to 
me  afterward,  to  say  that  particular  thing.  "I've 
got  to  go,  too.  I'll  meet  you  there." 

So  we  looked  out  times  and  trains  and  made  our 
final  pact.  I  had  privately  decided  that,  for  all  my 
mythical  engagement  at  Capri,  I  should  probably 
stay  on  at  Naples  up  to  the  point  of  being  due  at 
Psestum — for  due  there  I  was,  I  solemnly  knew,  for 
other  reason  than  that  I  had  vowed  to  meet  the 
lately  married  there.  But  what  the  reason  was,  I 
could  no  more  say  than  Julia  could,  of  hers.  Only 
there  was  a  reason. 

The  few  days  passed,  and  I  occupied  them  as  well 
as  I  could  for  thinking  of  the  moon  at  Cava,  in  run 
ning  back  over  my  own  life,  meagre  though  it  was  of 


148  THE  TRYST 

incident,  to  see,  once  for  all,  whether  I  could  have 
made  it  different.  I  didn't  find  that  I  could.  At 
every  point  where  other  men  score,  in  the  brave 
crisis,  the  big  distances,  I  had  slipped  a  cog.  When  a 
man  was  needed  at  the  vital  spot,  I  simply  couldn't 
be  there.  When  life  demanded  testimony  of  me,  I 
might  have  it  to  offer,  but  court  was  never  sitting 
that  day.  The  whole  thing  was  consistent.  It  had 
happened  to  me  over  and  over.  It  wasn't  that  I 
was  faint-hearted  and  weak-backed,  or  that  my  legs 
were  not  strong  enough  to  make  a  pace.  I  was 
becalmed  in  some  zone  of  the  soul.  Information 
never  reached  me.  Boats  couldn't  get  into  my  lati 
tude  with  the  news  of  the  battles  that  were  going  to 
be,  or  the  great  treaties  that  would  prevent  my  strik 
ing  futile  blows  for  a  quarrel  that  was  lost.  It  had 
all  been  like  a  retribution  for  some  misdeed  of  mine. 
I  felt  that  strongly,  for  I  believed  in  the  justice  that 
dogs  us  like  a  loving  hound,  and  I  knew  it  was  part 
of  the  beneficent  scheme  of  things  that  if  we  are  hit 
over  the  head,  it  is  that  we  have  at  some  time  bought 
the  blow.  Only,  how  had  I  deserved  precisely  this? 
Why  was  I  "come-tardy-of "  in  all  the  games  of 
life?  How  had  it  been  managed  that  I  shouldn't 
find  Julia  three  months  before  the  fresh-colored  Jack 
brought  his  conquering  cravats  into  the  field?  I 
hadn't  even  had  a  chance — and  why?  I  felt  it 
would  help  me  for  the  home  stretch,  which  had,  after 
all,  to  be  run  with  ardor,  even  if  to  a  decreed  igno 
miny,  to  know. 

The  morning  came,  and  all  fell  out  as  we  had  said. 


THE  TRYST  149 

We  met  at  Paestum  station,  the  five  of  us,  they  with 
little  canvas  bags  of  luncheon  from  the  paternal 
Hotel  de  Londres,  an  extra  portion  for  me.  There 
was  not  a  single  tourist  beside  ourselves — "a  single, 
blooming  tourist,"  Billy  said  —  and  the  sky  was 
Italian  blue,  and  a  light  wind  moving  to  welcome 
us,  when  between  dry  fields  where  wild  larkspur 
bloomed  we  walked  toward  the  temple — and  I,  by 
what  seemed  some  fated  chance,  walked  with  Julia, 
while  Jack  leaped  the  low  walls  to  bring  her  larkspur 
and  crowd  it  into  her  hands.  She  was  silent,  and 
I  seemed  to  know  it  was  because  the  moment,  the 
day,  meant  something  to  her  nobody  could  share — 
nobody  but  me,  perhaps,  for  I,  too,  knew  it  meant 
tremendously.  And  then  we  were  in  face  of  the 
great  yellow-pillared  splendor,  and  we  dared  to 
enter  and  wander  up  and  down  its  ruined  aisles. 
The  gods  were  there,  I  knew  perfectly  well,  and  said 
so;  but  I  chanced  to  say  it  was  Apollo,  for  I  heard 
him,  and  Mrs.  Billy  kept  chirping: 

"But  why  do  you  say  Apollo,  Mr.  Olmstead,  when 
this  is  the  Temple  of  Neptune?  Don't  you  know 
it's  the  Temple  of  Neptune,  Mr.  Olmstead?  Isn't 
it  Neptune  you  mean?" 

And  then  I  got  meek  and  patient  because  there 
was  no  other  way  of  hushing  her,  and  said,  "Yes,  I 
did  mean  Neptune."  But  about  this  time  we  all 
began  to  notice  Julia.  She  had  stayed  apart  from 
us,  in  our  wandering  up  and  down,  our  profane  feet 
where  priests  had  ministered,  and  now  she  was 
hurrying  back  and  forth,  peering  out  between  col- 


150  THE  TRYST 

umns,  even  so  far  as  the  line  of  distant  saline  blue, 
and  her  face  had  piteously  changed.  It  was  gray- 
pale  and  her  eyes  were  black  and  anguished.  Her 
husband  saw  it  about  as  soon  as  I  did,  and  started 
for  her  over  grassy  gulfs  between  the  slabs.  But 
when  he  would  have  touched  her,  she  waved  him 
off.  She  almost  pushed  him. 

"What  is  it,  darling?"  I  heard  him  say,  and  she 
looked  so  unfriended  that  I  was  glad  the  tender  word 
was  ready  for  her.  "Lost  something?" 

She  started  and  looked  at  him,  not,  I  could  have 
sworn,  knowing  him  at  all,  and  then  put  both  her 
hands  to  her  head  in  an  unaffected  gesture  of  wild 
perplexity. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "I  don't  know." 
And  then,  "Where  is  the  ship?" 

He  took  her  by  the  arm  and  led  her  along  perforce 
and  made  her  sit. 

"She  feels  the  heat,"  I  heard  him  say  to  Mrs. 
Billy  who  was  staring.  "Get  the  apollinaris,  Bill. 
Wet  a  handkerchief  in  it,  somebody." 

But  there  was  really  no  heat  to  feel.  The  little 
breeze  was  still  doing  its  kindest  for  us.  Julia 
laughed  out  now.  Her  color  had  come  back  as  if, 
having  got  into  another  part  of  the  temple,  she  had 
escaped  an  especial  territory  of  influence. 

"What  are  you  giving  me  apollinaris  for?"  she 
asked.  "  Jack,  you're  dripping  that  handkerchief  over 
Mrs,  Billy's  dress.  Want  it  on  my  head?  Of  course 
I  don't  want  a  great  wet  dab  on  my  head !  Come,  let's 
read  the  guide-book  and  then  have  luncheon." 


THE  TRYST  151 

So  we  avoided  looking  at  one  another,  the  rest  of 
us,  and  went  rather  hastily  into  activities,  as  if 
we  had  witnessed  some  special  madness  that  had 
blessedly  passed,  and  must  never  be  thought  of  any 
more.  And  in  due  time  we  had  our  luncheon,  and 
fed  the  lean  dogs  that  came,  evidently  by  habit,  to 
yearn  for  bits,  and  then  it  was  in  the  air  that  the 
Temple  of  Ceres  must  be  visited,  and  everybody,  well 
primed  by  Jack's  conscientious  perorations  from  the 
guide-book,  rose  to  go.  All  but  me,  and,  for  a 
moment,  all  but  Julia. 

"Come,  come,"  said  Jack  to  her.  It  was  im 
patient,  but  the  impatience  of  a  solicitude  most 
tender.  "  Get  a  move  on,  missus.  The  day's  'most 


over." 


She  shook  her  head.  The  puzzled  look  had  come 
back  to  her. 

"I  don't  believe  I  can,"  she  said,  and  she  spoke 
with  some  difficulty,  as  they  do  who  have  imper 
fectly  rehearsed  their  subject-matter.  "I  might 
be  late." 

He  gave  her  arm  a  little  shake. 

"Come,  come,  dear,"  said  he.  "You're  not  going 
to  worry  me  again?" 

That  seemed  to  bring  her  back  with  a  wrench  to 
what  we  are  pleased  to  call  reasonableness,  and  she 
laughed  and  turned  with  him  obediently  enough. 
They  were  midway  out  of  the  temple,  all  of  them, 
when  they  remembered  me. 

"  Come  along,  Olmstead,"  Jack  threw  back  at  me. 
He  was  entirely  good-natured  now  he  had  his  own 


152  THE  TRYST 

special  prize  under  convoy.  "You  mustn't  keep 
Ceres  waiting.  They  don't  like  it." 

"I'm  not  going,"  I  said.  "I'll  take  a  nap.  See 
you  at  the  train." 

At  that,  Julia,  his  wife,  stopped  short  and  gave  me 
that  puzzled  but  now  almost  recognizing  look;  but 
he  reminded  her  by  a  touch  on  the  arm,  and  she  went 
on  with  him,  patient,  I  could  see,  and  droopingly. 
And  Billy  tossed  me  a  cigar,  and  Mrs.  Billy  shook 
her  parasol  at  me,  and  they  were  gone,  and  had  left 
me  to  the  oblivion  I  candidly  knew  I  wanted.  I 
put  my  head  back  on  the  calm  old  pillar — I  was 
conscious  of  wishing  I  were  as  old,  so  that  I  could 
perhaps  be  as  indifferent — and  shut  my  eyes.  I  was 
horribly  tired,  and  at  the  same  time  most  unbearably 
excited  with  it  all.  With  what?  I  didn't  know. 
Was  this  panic?  Was  I  Pan-struck,  as  one  might 
well  be  on  this  ground  of  colossal  shadowy  deities? 
I  felt  that  I  was  nervous  as  a  green  girl,  and  threw 
all  sorts  of  obloquy  at  my  senile  state  for  admitting 
such  a  thing.  And  I  kept  my  eyes  shut  to  rest  them 
from  the  vision  of  things  seen,  and  so  they  stayed 
until  I  heard  a  voice.  It  was  a  woman's  voice,  a 
voice  I  could  have  sworn  was  Julia's,  and  it  spoke 
my  name.  Now  I  am  not  going  to  tell  what  my 
name  is,  because  it  is  Greek,  and  old,  and  funny 
when  I  sign  it  to  a  reply  to  a  dinner  invitation,  though 
it  does  very  well  for  a  scholar  who  has  dry  conclusions 
to  make  upon  living  facts.  My  father  was  a  scholar, 
and  he  gave  it  to  me,  and  perhaps  for  that  reason, 
perhaps  for  some  unknown  other,  I  have  always  been 


THE  TRYST  15$ 

content  with  it.  I  have  had,  indeed,  connected  with 
it,  a  certain  inevitable  feeling  I  can't  describe,  as  if 
nothing  else  could  ever  possibly  have  been  my  name. 
But  when  I  opened  my  eyes  I  saw  it  could  not  have 
been  I  who  was  called.  The  tourists  indeed  were 
upon  me,  a  man  and  a  woman,  both  young,  and  they 
walked  together  outside  the  temple,  and  talked 
together  with  a  trouble  and  haste  I  could  hardly 
forbear  to  share,  even  by  an  eye-beam,  it  was  in  itself 
so  passionate.  It  seemed  to  draw  lesser  intelligences 
to  it,  as  the  sun  compels  the  earth.  I  thought  I 
knew  who  they  were,  this  from  their  costume.  They 
were  in  white,  the  flowing  robes  of  an  ancient  time, 
and  I  guessed  at  once  that  they  were  out  of  a  troupe 
of  actors  of  classical  Greek  plays,  who  had  been  going 
about  London  and  Paris,  during  my  stay  there,  in 
the  free  beauty  of  their  borrowed  dress.  But  I 
began  to  hear  them  speak,  and  took  no  shame  in 
listening.  I  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  there  to  listen,  to 
share,  to  partake  with  them  of  the  tragic  imminence 
of  their  fate.  They  spoke  rapidly,  but  in  the  melody 
of  a  majestic  tongue  which  was  not  mine.  Yet, 
though  I  could  not  that  night  transcribe  a  word  of 
it,  I  followed  it  with  the  ease  of  a  leaf  on  a  flowing 
river.  She  was  entreating  him,  this  man  of  my  name, 
to  undo  some  irrevocable  deed.  What  it  was  I  could 
not  at  first  determine.  Then,  from  her  heart 
broken  reproaches,  and  his  hurlings  back  of  the 
"No!"  that  seemed  inevitable,  I  gradually  gathered 
knowledge.  He  had  sold  the  state's  secret — some 
secret — he  had  been  paid  by  the  enemy — some  enemy 


154  THE  TRYST 

— and  what  he  had  been  paid  was  to  enrich  him  to 
the  point  of  seizing  her  from  the  arms  of  the  hated 
lover  she  was  decreed  to,  and  fleeing  with  her  in 
the  enemy's  ship.  And  the  ship  was  out  there 
across  the  blue  line. 

But  the  girl  would  not  go.  She  was  adjuring 
him,  in  the  name  of  all  the  gods,  to  deliver  himself 
up  to  justice,  to  inevitable  death.  Here  was  where 
she  had  appointed  their  meeting,  here  by  the  sacred 
temple,  here  where  their  whisperings  might  be 
heard,  the  better  that  they  should,  that  priests 
and  gods  combined  might  slay  them  both  and  so 
hasten  his  expiation.  As  they  walked  back  an3 
forth  in  the  sunlight,  and  once  she  set  her  foot 
unconsciously  on  a  snake  and  I  saw  it  did  not  move 
even  by  a  tremor  of  its  shining  length,  my  eyes 
dwelt  with  a  love  and  pity  I  cannot  measure  upon 
the  filleted  gold  of  her  small  head.  I  seemed  to 
partake  with  her  of  anguish  lest  he  fail,  yet  to  know 
it  was  a  foregone  fate,  and  my  sadness  settled  into 
the  acquiescence  of  despair.  He  desired  nothing 
but  to  save  her,  yet  he  would  not  save  them  both,  as 
they  do  who  play  for  honors,  by  giving  up  himself. 
And  as  if  I  were  in  his  skin  I  saw  why.  He  loved  her 
too  fervidly,  too  passionately,  as  earth  is  tempting, 
forcing,  pushing  us  to  love,  and  as  the  big  law  we 
only  now  and  then  catch  a  glimpse  of,  will  not  have 
us.  And  curiously  from  that  far  time,  from  the 
misty  gates  of  it,  my  mind  leaped  with  a  throb,  a 
vault  down  the  centuries,  to  the  cavalier  who  made  an 
immortal  discovery  and  wrote  it  in  immortal  words : 


THE   TRYST  155 

I  could  not  love  thee,  Dear,  so  much, 

Loved  I  not  Honor  more. 

This,  in  substance,  she  represented  to  him  in  the 
passion  of  her  noble  phrases,  unconsidered,  born  like 
tears  out  of  a  breaking  heart.  She  was  his  dearest, 
she  said,  she  thanked  the  gods,  but  nevertheless  the 
gods  themselves  must  be  still  dearer  to  him,  they 
and  the  state.  What  was  it  compared  with  the 
dishonor  he  had  bought  that  her  poor  body  should 
be  stained  by  the  mastery  of  a  hated  spouse?  At 
that  he  cried  aloud,  and  she  hushed  him  while  my 
mind  had  time  to  flash  aside  to  another  mandate 
made  for  perpetuity  concerning  them  that  kill  the 
body  and  have  not  power  to  kill  the  soul.  Her  voice 
continued  in  its  lyric  rise  and  fall.  There  was  no 
help  for  either  of  them,  she  told  him,  he  in  his  present 
disaster  and  she  before  her  coming  slavery,  no  help 
save  death,  and  that  might  happily  be  now.  But  all 
the  same,  while  the  bright  rapiers  of  their  argument 
were  glancing,  I  knew  he  would  not  yield:  that  they 
were  to  be  discovered,  that  since  she  must  not  go 
with  him,  he  would  snatch  at  her  with  the  force  of 
love  run  wild,  and,  trusting  in  the  ship,  resolve  in 
his  madness  to  bear  her  to  it  across  the  parching 
leagues.  That  she  would  cry  out  to  the  gods  to 
save  them  and  they  would  be  saved — he  by  the  knife 
at  his  throat  and  she  to  sink  into  so  ill  a  mind  that 
no  man  would  take  her  to  him  with  her  bright 
beauty  faded. 

All  this  I  seemed  indubitably  and  with  a  high  sad 
ness  to  know,  and  athwart  the  web  of  it,  like  some- 


156  THE  TRYST 

thing  sharply  remembered,  I  heard  other  voices, 
insistently  familiar  ones  of  the  common  day.  Some 
one  was  calling,  Jack,  Billy  and  Mrs.  Billy,  she 
waving  her  parasol  up  and  down,  in  a  pump-handle 
fashion,  across  the  bright  vista  through  which  they 
ran.  Did  they  shock  the  other  visitants  to  a  scene 
beloved  and  throw  them  out  of  the  aura  where  they 
were  for  the  moment  visible?  Had  the  time  been 
preeminently  ripe  and  right  that  they — these  two 
beautiful  young  beings — had  returned  for  a  fleeting 
hour  of  a  day  no  longer  existent,  to  play  their  parts 
again  in  faithful  rigor  to  a  vanished  past,  or  had  I, 
incalculably  endowed,  seen  but  the  picture  of  them, 
woven  for  all  time  into  the  waving  tapestry  of  the 
air?  However  it  was,  they  were  gone,  not  of  a 
sudden,  not  either  walking  away  or  vanishing,  but 
in  some  quite  familiar  and  convincing  fashion,  as  if 
I  had  seen  beautiful  young  lovers  go  thus,  as  con 
clusively  as  if  it  were  through  a  gate.  And  at  the 
instant  that  I  felt  they  were  gone,  and  knew  myself 
to  be  in  some  way  the  richer,  the  more  complete 
for  having  seen  them,  I  heard  a  cry — not  from  those 
three  chorusing  on  behind,  but  a  light,  hurried  call 
in  a  voice  I  knew.  Yet  never  had  I  heard  it  so 
moved,  so  jubilant,  so  full  of  life.  And  as  I  turned 
to  it,  she  came — Julia  came,  flying.  Her  face  was 
pink  like  dawn,  and  her  glad  eyes  hailed  me.  She 
made  no  hesitant  pause  or  pretense  that  it  was 
anything  but  me  and  what  I  stood  for  she  had  come 
to  find.  Both  hands  out,  she  rushed  to  me,  and  I 
with  my  two  hands  received  her.  Standing  so, 


THE  TRYST  157 

palm  to  palm,  she  looked  up  in  my  face,  one  glad 
smile  of  recognition.  So  might  the  girl  I  had  just 
seen  have  looked  at  her  lover  if  she  had,  instead  of 
dooming  him  to  death,  beckoned  him  to  life  with  her. 

"Am  I  too  late?"  she  was  imploring  me,  yet  with 
the  sweetest  certainty  that  she  was  not.  "  Oh,  don't 
tell  me  I'm  too  late!" 

"  No,  no,"  I  answered  her,  worship  on  my  lips,  in  my 
eyes,  I  felt,  as  in  my  heart.  "  No.  I  was  here.  I  saw 
them.  What  difference  whether  it  was  you  or  I?" 

"What  difference!"  she  echoed  out  of  a  deep- 
breathed,  heavenly  tranquillity  of  happiness.  "Oh, 
what  difference!"  Then  she  looked  at  me  for  a  long 
minute,  as  if  she  saw  behind  my  lean  old  face  what 
jocund  youth  I  should  have  been  the  last  to  under 
stand,  but  not  to  believe.  I  knew  and  believed  it 
all.  '*It  is  the  last  now,"  she  said.  She  was  grow 
ing  fragmentary,  like  one  recalled  to  an  existence  not 
yet  comprehended,  and  only  able  to  stay  in  it  for  a 
minute,  and  now,  the  minute  over,  fading  out  of  it 
as  the  two  others  had  faded  to  my  eyes.  But  I 
understood.  The  last  parting,  she  had  meant  to 
say.  "Next  time" — she  stammered  sweetly,  in  her 
lovely  hesitancy,  like  a  child  of  heaven  learning 
the  new  language  and  as  yet  imperfect  in  it.  And 
then  I  saw  her — the  one  who  had  looked  at  me,  who 
had  spoken,  who  had  known  the  hour  was  nearly 
accomplished,  and  next  time,  in  whatever  age  and 
whatever  star,  would  see  the  bridegroom  claim  his 
bride — I  saw  her  fading  out  into  Julia  Dove,  the 
young  mate  of  Jack,  who  was  anxiously  hailing  her 


158  THE  TRYST 

as  he  ran:  for  she,  in  that  wonder  of  predestined 
flight,  had  outstripped  them  all.  And  I  did  not 
care.  I  did  not  care  that  she  was  to  return  with  him 
to  moonlight  and  bells  at  Cava,  for  that,  too,  must 
be  mysteriously  accomplished.  He  was  beside  her 
now,  and  I  dropped  her  hands.  She  looked  down 
at  them,  as  I  did  it,  surprised  a  little,  it  seemed,  to 
know  why  I  had  been  holding  them. 

"What  is  it?"  Jack  was  insisting,  out  of  a  rage  of 
anxious  love.  "What  in  thunder  is  it,  dear?" 

Mrs.  Billy  came  up,  panting  and  creaking,  and  her 
parasol  might  have  dinted  the  sacred  stones,  so  did 
she  punctuate  her  haste. 

"What  is  what,  dear?"  Julia  echoed,  lightly  and 
most  honestly.  "Did  I  hurry?  I  was  bidding  Mr. 
Olmstead  good-by." 

"  Come  along  then,"  said  Jack,  mopping  his  smooth 
young  brow,  and  almost  a  little  fractious  at  having 
been  fretted  into  more  perplexities.  "That  train 
will  be  in  in  about  three  minutes  and  a  half.  Come 
along,  Olmstead." 

"No,"  said  I.     "I'm  not  going." 

I  felt  light-headed,  drunk  with  the  delirium  and 
the  certainty  of  it. 

"Not  going?     You  won't  get  anywhere  tonight." 

"I  don't  want  to,"  said  I.  "I'm  somewhere  now. 
There'll  be  some  kind  of  a  little  hostelry." 

"Don't  be  a  fool,  man,"  said  Billy,  and  Mrs.  Billy 
shrieked  "Malaria!"  italicising  with  her  parasol. 

"Well,  there's  a  minute  gone,  and  we  can't  stop 
here,"  said  Jack,  and  I  didn't  blame  him.  One 


THE  TRYST  159 

doesn't  lightly  subject  wives  to  even  a  mythical 
malaria.  "  Come  on,  Olmstead.  We're  off." 

Julia  turned  willingly  and  obediently  with  him; 
but  at  ten  paces  she  stopped.  She  ran  back  toward 
me.  The  other  look  fleeted  into  her  face.  "Don't 
you  smell  them,"  she  cried.  "Roses!" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  afire  with  my  exultation,  and  again 
my  mind  challenged  my  own  century  and  found  the 
right  word  from  another  man's  pen:  "' Roses  from 
Paestan  rosaries! ' ' 

"Next  time" — she  faltered,  as  if  she  herself  least 
of  all  understood  what  she  might  be  saying.  The 
look  had  faded. 

"Julia!  Julia!"  Jack  was  calling,  and  Mrs. 
Billy  piped  me  out  one  more  warning: 

"Malaria,  Mr.  Olmstead!     Remember!" 

But  I  stood  there  happier,  younger,  more ,  at 
peace  than  anything,  I  believed,  on  earth.  I  could 
think  of  but  one  word  to  call:  the  word  any  man 
would  be  likest  to  leave  in  the  keeping  of  his  dearest, 
if  they  were  to  be  parted  for  a  lifetime  or  two.  Mrs. 
Billy  thought  it  was  her  word;  but  it  was  Julia's,  to 
her  soul  alone,  though  it  meant  no  more  to  her, 
with  the  memory  washed  out  of  her  face,  than  if 
a  butterfly  had  settled  for  an  instant  on  her  gown, 
and  she,  flying  with  Jack,  had  had  no  eyes  for  it.  I 
called  it  after  them,  and  Mrs.  Billy,  thinking  it  the 
echo  of  her  own,  shook  her  parasol  despairingly. 
Out  of  my  kingdom  of  youth  regained  and  love 
inalienably  assured  I  called,  and  it  rang  splendidly: 

"Remember!" 


V 

WAVES 

IT  seemed  to  Jeffrey  Wheelock  and  his  wife,  Anne, 
that  their  ridiculous  apartment  in  New  York  had 
acquired  a  meaning  and  a  distinction  since  Aunt 
Sybil  came  to  visit  them.  She  was  a  thin  blonde 
aunt,  something  over  sixty,  with  sparse  auburn  hair 
brought  smoothly  into  spirals  of  curls  behind  her 
ears,  a  perennial  smile,  all  benevolence,  and  a  most 
childlike  glance  through  the  gold-bowed  glasses  of 
which  she  was  so  proud.  She  had  earned  them  out 
of  eggs  and  butter,  and  it  exhilarated  her  to  think 
how  reckless  she  had  been  in  eschewing  a  baser  metal. 
Her  ways  were  comfortable  country  ones,  brought 
gaily  into  the  heart  of  a  city  turmoil  she  admired, 
and  there  displayed  with  no  faltering  over  their  in 
congruity.  In  the  two  days  of  her  visit,  she  had 
gone  with  Anne  to  a  picture  exhibition  and  a  half 
dozen  of  the  more  spectacular  shops  (Anne  anxiously 
selecting  such  pageantry  as  cost  nothing),  in  the 
calmest  surety  that,  if  her  cashmere  shawl  and  her 
bonnet  of  another  epoch  inspired  any  remark,  it 
could  be  only  of  a  kindly  tone. 

At  home  she  made  hourly  pictures,  sitting  by  the 
window  darning  stockings  that  had  been  cast  into 
the  obscurity  of  a  drawer  where  Anne  never  had 
time  to  go,  and  sewing  buttons  on  with  a  swift  regu 
larity  and  a  twirl  of  her  thread  about  the  base  that 

160 


WAVES  161 

fascinated  Jeff  as  much  now  in  his  mature  estate  as 
it  had  twenty  years  before,  when  he  sat  roasting  his 
apple  by  the  kitchen  hearth.  He  began  to  think  he 
had  never  fully  estimated  Aunt  Sybil's  decorative 
value.  It  seemed  as  if  he  might  even  build  her  into 
a  play,  or  that  he  might  have  done  it  at  an  earlier 
moment  when  he  had  the  enthusiasm  attendant  on 
untried  desires,  and  before  he  had  bitterly  learned 
that  the  doors  of  the  great  tribunal  of  dramatic 
agent  and  potent  manager  swing  rustily  on  their 
hinges. 

But  all  this  appreciation  of  Aunt  Sybil's  affec 
tionate  pleasure  in  being  with  them  made  only  a 
secluded  little  retiring-room  for  the  young  couple's 
thought,  a  shady  spot  where  they  could  drop  in  for  a 
moment  to  rest  upon  old  affections  and  loyalties,  in 
the  pauses  of  stolen  consultation  over  their  extreme 
and  menacing  poverty  and  their  kind  conspiracy  to 
give  Aunt  Sybil  a  rousing  good  time  until  she  should 
go  back  and  tell  the  neighbors  how  splendidly  Jeff 
was  doing  in  New  York. 

It  had  been  best  to  ask  her  now,  because  now  they 
had  the  apartment,  and  even  another  month  might 
find  them  unable  to  pay  for  it;  and  out  of  her  long 
kindness  Aunt  Sybil  had  earned  the  right  to  an  en 
during  picture  of  their  worldly  felicity  before  they 
settled  down,  in  one  room,  to  meals  out  of  small  bake- 
shops  and  tin  cans. 

This  morning  Jeff  was  out  on  one  of  his  lorn  quests 
after  the  ladylike  head  of  a  dramatic  agency,  who 
had  written  him  enthusiastic  praise  of  his  melo- 


162  WAVES 

drama,  alternating  with  mysterious  reasons  for  not 
landing  it  upon  the  great  Mr.  Nasmyth,  the  king  of 
the  managers. 

Aunt  Sybil  laid  down  her  work  and  slipped  her 
glasses  off  to  wipe  them.  She  looked  about  the  little 
sitting-room  with  its  Winged  Victory,  at  the  other 
delusive  wedding  presents,  each  testifying  to  more 
ease  than  the  young  couple  could  possibly  live  up  to, 
and  said,  with  great  satisfaction: 

"Well,  you  certain  are  fixed  complete." 

Anne  thought  of  the  Victory  swinging  outside  the 
window  on  its  way  into  a  house  with  stairs  too  nar 
row  for  its  advent,  fancied  the  stiff  Japanese  em 
broidery  near  neighbor  to  a  kerosene-stove,  and 
giggled. 

"We  like  it,"  she  said  speciously. 

"Some  said" — Aunt  Sybil  went  on  sewing,  and 
stated  the  case  candidly,  "some  of  'em  at  home  said 
Jeff  was  ravin'  crazy  to  give  up  school -keepin'  to 
write  plays.  Our  minister  said,  'Why  don't  he 
write  his  plays  first,  nights  and  so,  and  when  he's 
had  one  took,  then  burn  his  bridges?" 

"O  wise  young  judge!"  murmured  Anne  irre- 
pressibly. 

"What  d'you  say,  dear?"  inquired  Aunt  Sybil, 
glancing  up. 

"That  might  be  the  way  for  some,"  Anne  hedged. 

"Not  for  anybody  that  could  do  it  and  knew  he 
could.  So  I  says,  dear.  And  I  wrote  to  the  minis 
ter  last  night.  'They're  as  snug  as  ever  you  see/ 
says  I.  'Got  'em  a  nice  little  tenement,  everything 


WAVES  163 

complete.  And  Jeff's  got  his  play  done,  and  it's  in 
somebody's  hands.'  Who  is  it  that's  got  it,  dear?" 

"Miss  Belton  has  it." 

"Yes.  Miss  Belton.  I'll  remember  it  so's  I  can 
tell  'em  when  I  get  home.  When  do  the  royalties 
begin,  dear?" 

"Plays  are  usually  brought  out  at  the  beginning 
of  the  season,"  Anne  conceded  miserably. 

"Next  fall?  Then  that's  when  the  royalties'll 
begin.  My!  You  could  have  knocked  me  down 
first  time  I  read  in  the  paper  how  much,  them  royal 
ties  mount  up  to." 

"It's  a  good  business,"  said  Anne. 

"I  guess  so.  Well,  it's  all  come  out  better'n  any 
body  had  reason  to  hope.  There  was  a  month  or 
two,  when  Jeff  first  give  up  his  place,  I  worried  con 
siderable.  I  used  to  lay  awake  nights.  That  was 
before  I  found  out  abou.t  the  waves." 

"Waves,  Aunt  Sybil?" 

"Yes.  There  was  a  lecturer  to  the  hall.  He  told 
us  there  was  waves.  He  said,  you  just  think  things 
are  goin'  to  be  good  and  they  are  good.  If  you  think 
they'll  be  bad,  why  so  't'll  be.  When  we  think, 
dear,  we  kinder  make  waves  in  the  air " 

"Thought- waves?" 

"I  dunno.  I  didn't  ketch  exactly  what  they  were. 
Only  they  were  waves.  And  they  keep  on  and  on, 
and  mebbe  they  wash  down  some  things  and  build 
up  others.  I  dunno  exactly  how  it  is;  but  anyway 
it's  your  thought  that  makes  'em,  and  there's  nothin' 
they  can't  do." 


164  WAVES 

"There's  Jeff." 

Aunt  Sybil  was  not  listening.  Her  ears  were  at 
tuned  to  the  murmuring  of  subtle  influences  on 
far-off  shores.  "I've  tried  it,  dear,"  she  said.  "I 
know." 

"The  waves?"  Anne  was  out  of  her  chair,  poised 
for  a  flight  to  the  hall,  to  meet  Jeff  and  give  him  the 
relief  of  telling  his  news  quickly. 

"Yes.  When  I  got  kinder  struck  up  over  Jeff's 
givin'  up  his  business  and  takin'  to  plays,  I  says  to 
myself:  'Well,  if  there's  waves,  I'll  make  'em.'  So 
instead  of  worryin'  I'd  say — I  guess  a  hundred  times 
a  day  I  said  it — 'Now  there's  Jeff  and  Anne — Jeff's 
writin'  the  best  play  ever  anybody  see,  and  there's 
money  comin'  to'  em.'  Bymeby  I  could  see  it  rollin' 
in.  It  was  a  kind  of  a  stream,  all  gold,  and  the  waves 
was  washin'  it  along." 

Anne  halted  in  the  doorway.  Tears  were  in  her 
eyes.  "Did  you,  Aunt  Sybil?"  she  said.  Then 
she  met  Jeff  in  the  hall.  "What  is  it?"  she  asked. 
"Did  you  see  her?" 

He  drew  her  toward  their  bedrbom  and,  inside  it, 
shut  the  door.  His  step,  faltering  out  failure,  had 
prepared  her  for  his  face.  He  threw  off  his  hat 
and  passed  a  hand  over  his  forehead.  He  looked 
haggard. 

"No,"  he  said.  "I  didn't  see  her.  'Miss  Belton 
was  out.'  There's  no  such  thing  as  a  visible  Miss 
Belton.  Had  they  tried  to  place  my  play?  The 
girl  was  sure  Miss  Belton  had  made  every  effort.  I 
said  I'd  take  it  with  me.  She  couldn't  find  it,  Anne. 


WAVES  165 

They'd  actually  pigeonholed  it  so  effectually  it 
couldn't  be  found." 

"They  did  find  it?" 

"Yes,  after  it  was  apparent  I  meant  to  sit  there 
till  the  day  after  to-morrow.  Yes,  she  found  it,  in 
the  same  wrapper  I  sent  it  in,  untouched,  fresh  as 
paint.  It  hadn't  been  read." 

"You  took  it?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  took  it." 

"Where  is  it?" 

"I  met  Jessie  Horton  on  the  way  back,  and  she 
got  it  away  from  me." 

Anne  gave  his  shoulder  a  little  shake.  "Got  it 
away  from  you,  Jeff?  Don't  be  crazy." 

"I  told  her  what  I'd  done,"  he  went  on,  as  if  it 
were  a  dull  story,  yet  necessarily  to  be  rehearsed. 
"She  put  me  up  to  one  or  two  things  I'd  better  have 
known  earlier.  She  thought  I  was  rather  green, 
Jessie  did,  to  expect  the  girls  at  Belton's  to  hunt  up  a 
play  unless  I  greased  the  wheels.  A  five-dollar  bill 
does  wonders.  Ten  works  a  miracle." 

"Surely  not!" 

"So  she  said.  Anyhow,  I  hadn't  any  ten  dollars 
to  spend  that  way,  nor  five,  nor  one.  She  told  me 
something  else.  Belton  couldn't  show  my  play,  nor 
any  play,  to  Nasmyth.  They've  quarreled." 

"Then  show  it  to  Nasmyth  yourself!" 

"You're  raving  foolish,  Anne.  How  am  I  going  to 
get  at  him?  I'm  one  of  forty  thousand  suppliants. 
Jessie  said  the  same  thing.  Then  she  said,  'Send  it 
to  an  actor.'  I  had  sent  it,  I  told  her,  to  half  a  dozen 


166  WAVES 

already.  They  lose  'em  in  country  hotels  on  the 
road.  They  take  'em  for  shaving-papers  and  toss 
'em  out  of  car-windows.  It's  a  bottomless  abyss. 
The  poor  devil  of  a  writer  might  as  well  go  down  in  a 
diving-bell  as  try  to  plumb  it." 

"What  did  she  say  to  that?" 

"I  don't  know."  He  mused  miserably.  "Any 
how,  she's  got  the  play.  She's  going  to  read  it." 

"Jessie  Horton!  Jessie  can  paint  miniatures. 
She  can't  boost  a  play." 

"She's  going  to  have  in  a  dozen  or  so,  artists  of 
low  degree,  and  read  the  play  to  them.  I  think  she 
has  a  vague  idea  they  may  know  some  fledgling  news 
paper  man.  It's  all  she  can  do,  she  says.  It  may 
start  a  ripple." 

"Jessie's  kind  of  ripple  won't  get  anywhere." 

"Maybe  not.     But  she's  a  brick." 

"Oh,  yes,  Jessie's  a  brick.  When  is  the  reading 
to  be?" 

"Next  Wednesday,  in  the  studio." 

"Why  don't  you  read  it  yourself?" 

"She  wanted  me  to.  I  wouldn't.  I  haven't  the 
voice — nor  the  heart." 

"It'll  be  one  more  thing  to  take  Aunt  Sybil  to," 
said  Anne  thriftily.  "She'll  think  it's  one  of  her 
waves." 

"Her  what?" 

Anne  set  forth  the  theory  of  waves;  their  cares 
fell  from  them,  and  they  hung  upon  each  other  and 
went  into  spasms  of  foolish  laughter.  They  sped  in 
to  Aunt  Sybil  on  the  tide  of  it,  and  she  looked  benevo- 


WAVES  167 

lently  up  at  them,  thinking  how  good  it  is  to  be  young 
and  clever  and  prospectively  rich. 

At  luncheon,  Anne  announced  to  her  with  the  air 
of  proclaiming  something  inconceivable,  that  Jeff's 
play  was  to  be  read.  Jessie  Horton  would  read  it. 

"She  the  one  that's  goin'  to  act  in  it?"  inquired 
Aunt  Sybil. 

Jeff  allowed  Anne  to  meet  all  these  searchers.  She 
was  more  facile — not  less  truthful,  but  better  adapted 
to  skirt  upon  the  edges  of  truth  and  take  a  little  flut 
ter  in  it  often  enough  to  come  up  with  a  sparkle  on 
her  wings. 

"No,"  said  Anne,  with  composure.  "She's  an 
artist.  She  thinks  it  well  to  have  the  play  known 
more  or  less  before  it's  acted." 

"Certain!"  agreed  Aunt  Sybil.  "Well,  I  should 
admire  to  go." 

"We  may  not  think  the  play  as  good  as  it  really 
is,"  Anne  felt  obliged  to  warn  her.  "Jessie  doesn't 
read  particularly  well.  It  wouldn't  be  at  all  like 
having  an  actress  do  it,  for  example.  You  mustn't 
be  disappointed." 

"I  should  kinder  thought  they'd  got  an  actress," 
remarked  Aunt  Sybil.  "They  all  busy  at  this  sea 
son  o'  the  year?" 

"Pretty  busy,"  returned  Anne,  in  haste.  "More 
tea,  Aunt  Sybil?  Well,  maybe  Jessie  can  read  better 
than  we  fear." 

"We'll  think  she  reads  complete,"  said  Aunt  Sybil, 
"the  best  that  ever  was.  Then  it'll  all  come  out 
right.  That's  the  waves,  you  know." 


168  WAVES 

The  play  was  to  be  read  at  three  in  the  afternoon, 
and  on  the  morning  of  that  Wednesday  Jeff  and 
Anne  made  careful  selection  among  their  bric-a-brac, 
and  carried  most  of  the  portable  articles  over  to  the 
studio.  This  was  a  futile  elaboration,  yet  they  had 
a  somber  pleasure  in  it.  It  was  only  gracious  in 
them  to  respond  to  Jessie  with  the  cheerful  implica 
tion  that  the  day  meant  as  much  to  them  as  she  had 
generously  intended.  But  after  they  had  done  hard 
service  in  the  studio  for  two  hours,  draped  the  chair 
on  the  model  throne,  hung  tapestries,  and  gloomily 
regarded  the  best  vantage  points  for  jugs  and  screens, 
their  hearts  fell  dismally.  Jeff  could  have  cursed  the 
silly  ending  of  a  venture  whereon  he  had  so  valiantly 
embarked. 

Unassailable,  there  towered  in  his  mind  the  cer 
tainty  that  he  had  written  a  good  play.  It  might 
even  be  great.  That,  after  all,  was  for  the  sovereign 
people  to  declare.  But  that  it  was  warm  with  youth 
and  high  romance,  firm  of  workmanship,  just  in  con 
clusion,  he  knew.  And  to  this  market  had  it  come: 
the  judgment  of  a  small  circle  from  another  art,  men 
whose  most  honest  intent  could  never  hoist  it  a  step 
on  the  legitimate  way. 

At  twelve  o'clock  he  stood  on  the  pavement  again, 
with  Anne. 

"Car?  "he  offered. 

She  shook  her  head.  "No,  I  must  have  a  breath 
and  get  rid  of  my  cobwebs  before  I  see  Aunt  Sybil." 

"Poor  Aunt  Sybil!" 

"Poor  us!     Aunt  Sybil's  all  right.     By  the  time 


WAVES  169 

we're  bankrupt  she'll  have  had  her  visit  and  gone 
placidly  home.  Shall  we  apply  at  a  teacher's 
agency?" 

"It's  a  bad  time  of  year,"  said  Jeff  quietly. 

She  looked  at  him.  The  line  of  his  mouth  made 
a  savage  curve,  and  as  she  had  traced  every  step  of 
the  way  to  this  inglorious  conclusion,  so  now  she 
knew  the  present  smart.  Jeff  was  not  suffering 
because  they  were  poor  and  saw  every  prospect  of  a 
barer  poverty.  It  was  because  he  loved  his  play 
and  he  believed  in  it.  This  was  the  highest  con 
ception  he  had  of  action,  the  best  he  knew  of  poetry. 
Nobody  had  seen  in  it  what  he  had  tried  to  put  there, 
and  his  headlong  temperament  told  him  nobody  ever 
would  see  it.  Out  of  her  sorrow  for  him,  her  words 
were  bitter. 

They  went  on  in  silence,  and  suddenly,  pierced  by 
the  irony  of  fortune,  she  laughed.  "Why,  Jeff," 
said  she,  "the  waves!" 

He  was  far  away,  rebelliously  seeking  out  the 
causes  of  things.  "The  waves?" 

"Aunt  Sybil's.  We're  to  think  palaces,  and 
houses  will  sprout  into  turrets.  We're  to  think 
diamonds,  and  the  coal-bin  will  glitter.  Let's  play 
that  way.  It's  turned  Aunt  Sybil  into  a  tight-rope 
optimist.  There  she  goes,  morning,  noon  and  night, 
in  her  spangled  petticoat,  balancing  her  stick  and 
smiling  at  the  audience,  and  saying  it's  all  coming 
out  right  because  she  thinks  so." 

"We  can't  play  that  game,"  said  Jeff  absently. 
"We're  of  the  blood  of  Thomas,  the  Doubter." 


170  WAVES 

"But  play,  child,  play!     Get  a  laugh  out  of  it." 

"Ay,  ay,  sir!     You  begin," 

"We're  to  assume  that  everything's  at  the  top 
notch.  I  begin  to  see  how  exhilarating  it  might  be 
— a  sort  of  transcendental,  blameless  way  of  getting 
drunk.  We  need  it,  Jeff.  We're  depleted  by  reali 
ties.  Here's  a  table  set — with  nothing  on  it.  Pour 
the  wine." 

Jeff  roused  himself. 

"Very  well,"  said  he.  "The  waves!  Your  play. 
I'll  come  in  when  I  can." 

At  Twenty-third  Street  a  labor  procession  was 
crossing  and  they  were  immediately  ensnared  in  a 
swirling  crowd.  There  was  prospect  of  their  wait 
ing  some  time  for  the  knot  to  untangle,  and  Anne 
took  her  hand  from  his  arm  where  she  had  laid  it, 
country -fashion.  She  turned  upon  him  in  the  pleas 
ure  of  an  evident  surprise. 

"Why,  Mr.  Wheelock,"  she  interjected  brightly. 
"Are  you  really  in  town?" 

Jeff  took  off  his  hat  with  as  gallant  an  abandon  as 
the  throng,  elbow  to  tight  elbow,  would  allow. 

"Delighted  to  see  you,"  he  answered  in  kind. 
"  And  you  of  all  people !  How  well  you  are  looking ! " 

"You,  too!  on  the  top  wave,  aren't  you?" 

"The  tip  of  the  top,"  said  Jeff  merrily.  "Don't 
look  at  my  old  clo'.  I'm  perennially  shabby  nowa 
days.  Can't  get  time  to  hunt  up  my  tailor." 

"What's  this  I  hear  about  a  play?" 

The  crowd  surged  a  little,  and  they  settled  into 
place.  Jeff  got  a  grip  of  her  underarm  to  steady 


WAVES  171 

her.  Anne  hated  mobs.  They  made  her  panicky; 
and  he  began  gaily  to  defend  her  from  guessing  how 
thick  humanity  was  about  them. 

"Oh,  the  play!  It's  like  a  fairy-story.  I've 
written  a  melodrama,  and  they're  simply  fighting 
for  it." 

"  Nasmyth  ?     The  great  Nasmy th  ?  " 

"No.  That's  the  joke.  The  great  Nasmyth 
isn't  in  it.  He  doesn't  even  know  about  it.  Miss 
Belton  has  absolutely  forbidden  a  whisper  in  his 
direction." 

"She  wants  it?" 

"Precisely.     For  the  other  side." 

"Will  they  do  as  well  for  you  as  Nasmyth?" 

Jeff  cocked  his  head,  and  tried  to  hold  her  eye  as 
the  crowd  thickened. 

"As  well!"  he  trumpeted,  with  bravado.  "Why, 
my  dear  friend,  I'm  made.  I've  only  to  sit  down 
now  and  sign  checks.  Though  I  haven't  accepted, 
mind  you." 

"But  you  will?" 

"Oh,  undoubtedly!  We  sign  the  contract  to 
morrow.  Meanwhile,  the  play's  to  be  read  this 
afternoon." 

"Really?     Might  I  hear  it? " 

"  Delighted.  Three  o'clock,  at  Flaxman  Studios." 
His  quick  eye  had  caught  a  rift  in  the  crowd. 
"Scoot,  Anne,"  he  said,  in  her  ear.  "That  way; 
I'll  keep  hold  of  you."  His  hands  on  her  waist,  he 
got  her  through  the  press,  and  after  a  breathless 
minute  they  were  looking  back  from  a  safe  curb. 


172  WAVES 

"Heavens!"  breathed  Anne.  "I  should  have 
fainted  if  I'd  known.  I  thought  it  was  five  deep. 
It's  a  hundred." 

He  laughed.  "What  you  don't  know  never  hurts 
you.  Waves,  Anne,  waves !" 

They  went  home  to  luncheon,  which  Aunt  Sybil 
benevolently  had  ready,  then*  young  spirits  back 
again,  and  they  laughed  all  through  the  meal. 

At  five  minutes  before  three,  twenty  people  were 
seated  comfortably  in  Jessie  Horton's  studio.  The 
candles  were  lighted.  Mirrors  reflected  shining 
brasses  and  dull  tapestries.  It  all  had  a  look  of  sub 
dued  gaiety  and  importance,  as  if  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  had  been  taken  to  make  fit  surroundings  for 
something  worthy  of  applause.  Jeff,  looking  about 
him,  thought  with  bitterness  that  here  was  a  simu 
lation,  in  little,  of  the  goal  he  had  meant  to  touch. 
Here  was  his  beautiful  play.  Here  was  a  handful  of 
people  to  listen  to  it.  But  in  a  moment  the  candles 
would  be  out,  the  bric-a-brac  returned  to  its  niche, 
the  studio  would  be  the  scene  of  Jessie's  solitary 
supper,  and  the  play  no  step  nearer  to  its  goal. 

Aunt  Sybil,  in  her  embroidered  crepe  shawl,  her 
little  curls  tighter  than  eye  could  believe  from  the 
rigorous  pains  with  which  she  had  constructed  them, 
sat  in  the  front  row  close  by  the  model  throne.  She 
had  turned  a  beaming  face  upon  Anne,  haggard  at 
her  side — Anne  for  whom  even  this  reading  of  the 
beloved  lines  meant  agony,  lest  some  ear  or  mind 
should  be  holden  to  their  beauty. 

Anne  smiled  faintly  in  answer.     She  cc  Id  inter- 


WAVES  173 

pret  the  look.  They  were  to  hope  for  the  best,  im 
agine  and  will  the  best.  There  were  to  be  waves. 
Jessie,  manuscript  in  hand,  was  about  to  mount  the 
platform.  At  that  moment  Anne  turned  to  Jeff, 
whispering: 

"Who  is  that  man?  There,  at  the  doorway.  He 
was  close  by  us  this  morning  in  the  crowd." 

Jeff  looked.  A  tall  blond  man  in  a  fur-lined  coat 
stood  just  inside  the  door,  holding  his  hat  rather 
deferentially,  as  if  he  begged  the  privilege  of  coming 
in.  Jeff's  breath  quickened  while  his  heart  pounded. 

"My  God!  that's  Nasmyth  himself!" 

Nobody  saw  the  man  but  these  two.  Now  it 
appeared  that  Jessie's  skirt  had  caught  on  a  tack 
and  somebody  was  loosening  it  solicitously.  Na 
smyth  still  stood  there  waiting  to  be  asked  in.  Jeff, 
not  formulating  what  he  meant  to  do,  was  on  his 
feet  and  had  taken  a  stride  over  the  corner  of  the 
throne.  At  Jessie's  elbow  he  bent,  and  while  the 
other  man  laboriously  freed  the  lace,  whispered  in 
her  ear: 

"Go  and  ask  him  in." 

"Who?"  said  Jessie,  coming  to  her  feet,  and  giving 
her  liberated  skirt  a  shake. 

"There  in  the  doorway.  Nasmyth — can't  you 
see?  Ask  him  in.  Give  him  a  seat.  I'll  read." 

He  pulled  the  manuscript  from  her  hand,  and 
Jessie  turned  automatically,  saw  Nasmyth,  and 
walked  over  to  him.  Jeff,  on  the  platform,  first  act 
in  hand,  felt  the  ripple  of  surprise  about  him,  and 
knew,  with  the  prescience  that  had  become  in  that 


174  WAVES 

instant  the  product  of  his  entire  bodily  sense  and  not 
of  vision  alone,  that  she  was  giving  Nasmyth  a 
seat.  Then  he  heard  his  own  voice,  clear  and  as 
decisive  as  the  little  jacks  that  strike  piano  keys, 
announcing : 

"Time,  the  present.     Place,  a  ranch  in  Montana/' 

From  that  moment  he  read  in  a  waking  trance  and 
read  to  Nasmyth.  The  man  seemed  to  be  the  auto 
crat  of  a  small  yet  infinitely  desirable  world,  and 
Jeff  had  brought  his  trained  puppets  to  be  judged  as 
to  their  fitness  for  living  in  that  world  and  making 
merry  there.  While  his  voice  read,  his  mind  kept 
up  a  running  argument  to  the  man,  always  in  the 
person  of  the  puppets  themselves. 

"Hear  us,"  it  kept  saying.  "Only  hear  us.  Let 
us  prove  we  have  some  blood  in  us  and  can  make 
your  houses  laugh  and  cry.  Listen  to  us!  Listen!" 

The  play  went  on,  and  with  it  the  argument  in  the 
playwright's  mind.  Jeff  did  not  once  look  at  Na 
smyth.  Nor  did  he  glance  at  his  own  two  dear 
women  sitting  down  there  in  front — Anne,  he  knew, 
with  excitement  straining  her  face,  and  Aunt  Sybil 
with  the  smile  that  signified  how  hard  she  was  whip 
ping  up  the  waves.  He  looked  over  them  all  and 
threw  his  voice  into  the  shadows  at  their  back.  It 
might  have  been  the  auditorium,  and  he  and  his 
puppets,  on  a  lighted  stage,  still  continuing  that 
grave  and  steady  plea  to  be  heard,  only  to  be  heard. 

The  first  act  was  over,  and  with  only  an  interval 
for  a  breath  he  had  begun  the  next.  Now  he  was 
conscious  of  a  fear — lest  Nasmyth  should  go  out.  If 


WAVES  175 

Nasmyth  went  out  he  felt  sure  something  would 
break.  The  scene  would  dissolve.  His  own  voice 
would  cease,  and  he  would  go  crashing  down  among 
what  seemed  to  be  chairs  and  listening  people.  Then 
he  began  to  reason  with  himself,  and  find  arguments 
for  speeding  through  it  calmly.  This  was  the  cul 
mination  of  the  months  of  work  on  the  play  and  the 
strain  of  his  heart-sickness  over  it.  Nothing  would 
be  more  likely  than  his  breaking  down;  yet  he  must 
avoid  that  because  it  would  frighten  Anne  and  hor 
rify  Aunt  Sybil. 

But  Nasmyth  simply  must  not  go  out.  He 
thought  of  reading  faster,  lest  Nasmyth  should  need 
to  take  a  train,  and  then  decided  that,  for  some  rea 
son  unknown  to  him,  it  was  safer  to  keep  on  at  this 
measured  pace.  Some  one  came  up  and  put  a  glass 
of  water  at  his  hand.  He  felt  a  momentary  im 
patience  that  any  one  could  think  of  fortifying  him 
by  obvious  means  for  such  a  task  as  this.  Then  he 
longed  for  the  water  inordinately,  but  dared  not 
drink,  lest,  in  the  pause,  Nasmyth  should  go  out. 

Act  two  was  ended.  He  marshaled  his  fagged 
puppets  and  read  on  through  acts  three  and  four. 
When  he  had  finished,  he  gathered  up  the  manuscript 
from  the  little  table,  and  rolled  it  mechanically. 
The  studio  looked  rather  dark,  and  he  heard  Anne 
saying,  in  a  high,  artificial  voice: 

"Do  you  think  so?  I  shall  tell  him.  Thank  you 
so  much."  But  as  for  him,  he  had  stepped  down 
from  the  model  throne  and  he  was  face  to  face  with 
Nasmyth. 


176  WAVES 

"Have  you  sold  your  rights?"  the  great  man 
asked,  without  prologue. 

"No,"  he  heard  himself  answering  in  his  clear 
reading  voice,  a  voice  he  hardly  knew  he  had. 

"I  want  it.     Can  you  come  round  to-morrow?" 

"Yes." 

"At  ten?" 

"At  ten." 

"Better  say  nine.  Somebody  else  has  an  option  on 
it,  I  understand."  Jeff  felt  himself  coming  awake. 
His  brilliant  certainties,  builded  on  a  joke,  collapsed. 

"Nobody's  got  an  option  on  it,"  he  said  miserably. 
Hot  tears  came  into  his  eyes  and  hurt  and  startled 
him.  "You  overheard  us.  We  were  playing  fool." 

For  that  the  great  man  did  not  care. 

"It's  a  good  play,"  he  said.  "That  is,  it  has 
possibilities.  A  few  changes,  and  we  can  bring  'em 
out."  Then  he  melted,  and  Jeff  could  see  that  he 
was  remembering  the  puppets  and  their  message  of 
life  and  love.  "It's  a  corker,"  said  Nasmyth. 
"Bring  it  along.  Now  I  must  apologize  to  the  lady 
for  butting  in." 

There  was  tea,  and  Jeff  went  home  with  his 
womenfolk,  one  on  each  side.  He  looked  straight 
ahead  into  the  radiant  future.  Anne  did  not  speak 
because  she  was  in  awe  at  the  bigness  of  Fate.  Aunt 
Sybil  was  absorbed  in  the  pageant  of  the  streets. 
When  they  were  at  home,  Jeff  sat  down  and  put  his 
head  in  his  hands. 

"Lawzy!"  said  Aunt  Sybil,  "you're  all  beat  out. 
Well,  'twas  quite  a  spell  to  read  right  along." 


WAVES  177 

"Yes,"  said  Anne  hastily  her  hand  on  his  shoulder, 
"he's 'beat  out/" 

There  was  very  little  said  in  the  house  that  night. 
It  seemed  to  Anne  and  Jeff  that  something  was  crys 
tallizing,  and  they  must  be  careful  not  even  to  dis 
turb  the  air.  Aunt  Sybil,  judging,  as  she  often 
cheerfully  did,  from  a  set  of  general  precepts  she  had 
brought  with  her,  that  they  must  have  mutual  con 
fidences  to  make,  went  to  bed  early. 

When  she  came  out  to  breakfast,  Jeff  was  gone. 
Anne  had  agreed  with  him  that  it  was  best  for  him 
to  walk  to  his  appointment,  and  get  himself  into 
some  kind  of  shape.  All  that  forenoon  Anne,  with 
the  face  of  a  martyr,  sat  by  while  Aunt  Sybil  rocked 
and  sewed.  Once  she  broke  down. 

"O,  Aunt  Sybil!"  she  moaned,  "keep  your  mind 
on  Jeff.  Don't  take  it  off  an  instant.  Wish  him 
luck,  just  luck!" 

Aunt  Sybil  asked  no  questions. 

"Law,  child!"  said  she,  "my  mind's  mostly  on 
Jeff,  when  it  ain't  on  both  of  you  together.  Them 
waves  are  runnin'  mountain-high." 

At  twelve  he  came.  He  was  pale,  but  his  eyes 
shone  as  they  had  the  first  time  Anne  had  told  him 
she  "liked  him  very  much."  He  threw  a  long  en 
velope  into  her  lap. 

"There  it  is,"  he  said  huskily.  "We  begin  re 
hearsals  next  week.  And  I'm  to  adapt  a  thing  from 
the  French  and  get  five  hundred  down.  Aunt  Sybil, 
light  of  my  soul,  do  you  want  a  diamond  sunburst, 
or  a  horse  and  buggy — or  only  a  kiss?" 


THE    FLAGS    ON    THE    TOWER 

NEAL  DIXWELL,  in  the  one  train  a  day  that  went 
down  to  Paradise  Cove  now  that  the  fall  weather  was 
on  and  summer  residents  had  fled,  felt  an  agreeable 
sense  of  adventure.  It  was  his  own  house  he  was 
going  to,  where  his  wife  had  chosen  to  stay  later  than 
usual,  even  though  he  had  been  called  to  town,  and 
the  trip  through  marshes,  a  bewilderment  of  brilliant 
brown  grass  and  blue  water,  was  enough  to  gainsay 
the  intelligence  of  anyone  who  could  consent  to 
forego  it  while  it  kept  up  to  such  a  pitch.  It  was  a 
route  Dixwell  had  taken  for  years  through  the  sum 
mer,  yet  to-day  it  was  different,  not  only  from  the 
season's  change,  but  under  the  reflection  of  his  own 
mood.  Everything  was  diversified  like  the  bars  in 
the  spectrum,  though  in  an  unfamiliar  order.  This 
was  as  memory  talked  to  him,  like  a  sad  yet  in 
exorably  exact  whisperer  at  his  ear.  There  was  the 
intense  violet  of  the  time  when  he  had  bought  the 
house  and  taken  Amy  there  to  spend  their  first  mar 
ried  summer.  It  had  continued  violet  of  a  sort  for 
a  few  years  after  that.  At  least,  if  it  had  not,  his 
eyes,  accustomed  to  violet,  had  seen  what  they 
looked  for.  Then  he  had  blinked  them  open,  be 
cause  it  had  surely  faded.  After  that  it  had  been 
rather  a  garish  red,  while  they  tried  to  bring  other 
people  into  their  atmosphere,  to  look  on,  to  admire, 

178 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        179 

and  perhaps,  by  a  delicate  measure  of  applause,  con 
vince  them  that  they  were  happy,  after  all.  Then 
even  this  had  changed  into  a  hard  hue  that  had  no 
beauty  in  it,  yet  was  warranted  to  wear.  But  it 
was  not  wearing.  It  had  ugly  splotches,  and  he  was 
going  down  now  to  show  the  splotches  to  Amy,  to 
ask  her  if  she  saw  them  as  clearly  as  he  did,  and  if 
they  mightn't  as  well  wash  the  whole  thing  out  and 
not  pretend  to  seeing  any  color  at  all. 

Hitherto,  as  to  this  fading  of  the  hues  of  youth, 
they  had  kept  a  well-bred  reticence.  Even  to  him 
self  he  had  not  owned  Amy's  share  in  the  threadbare 
condition  of  the  web.  He  had  said  that  he  was  grow 
ing  old,  though  not  yet  fifty,  that  life  was  made  that 
way,  and  that  you  couldn't  possibly  expect  an 
elderly  dusk  to  fulfil  the  promise  of  a  bird-haunted 
dawn.  Yet  now,  within  a  few  days,  since  he  had 
been  alone  at  the  town  house  taking  a  ruthless  look 
over  their  bankrupt  stock,  he  owned  of  necessity, 
since  he  had  determined  to  be  honest  at  last,  that 
Amy,  as  well  as  he  and  the  course  of  the  years,  must 
bear  the  responsibility  of  their  failure.  Amy  was 
there  in  the  picture  that  illustrated  their  common 
fall,  and  at  last  she  must  accept  her  share  of  cul 
pability. 

As  the  train  took  him  through  the  yellowed  marshes 
at  a  not  too  hurried  pace — for  it  was  a  considerate 
train,  willing  to  deposit  milk  cans  and  morning 
papers — he  asked  himself,  while  his  eyes  absently 
recorded  the  beauty  of  bright-blue  inlets  with  lean 
ing  boats  at  rest  in  them  and  the  rich,  fringing  border 


180       THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

of  grass,  exactly  what  his  quarrel  was  with  life. 
Taken  in  the  large,  it  was  perhaps  that  the  appear 
ance  of  things  had  deceived  him  deliberately  and 
with  purpose.  Nature. had  wanted  to  get  something 
out  of  him — his  total  of  contribution  in  response  to 
her  warm  promise  of  emolument — and  when  he  had 
given  all  that  was  in  him  she  had  told  him : 

"Perhaps  that's  all  you  can  do.  I  can't  stop  to 
explain  why  the  rewards  I  offered  you  are  not  pre 
cisely  in  proportion  to  your  anticipation.  I've  got 
to  shake  my  banners  before  somebody  else  younger 
than  you  are.  That's  all." 

Even  his  book-writing,  productive  as  it  had  been 
of  praise,  merely  made  him  a  little  sick  when  he 
dared  confront  its  gathered  fruits.  He  had  aimed 
at  the  ineffable,  the  word  beyond,  and  he  had  ac 
complished  nothing  more  than  the  obvious  that 
people  were  eager  to  praise — when  they  could  entice 
him  to  teas  and  author's  readings.  He  really  had 
had  the  vision,  once.  He  knew  that  ecstasy  of  ex 
pression  which  is  as  real  as  the  religious  rapture,  the 
leap  into  the  air  for  words  as  they  pass  in  winged  pro 
cessional.  And  somehow  he  had  succeeded  only  in 
a  molded  precision  which  the  unlearned  call  style. 
And  in  place  of  his  rapt  contemplation  of  the  divin 
ity  of  things  he  had  little  more  than  a  hurt  wonder  at 
finding  them  as  they  are.  They  had  outlines  now, 
surfaces.  They  did  not  swim  like  angelic  forms  in  a 
transfiguring  mist.  The  face  of  life,  as  it  presented 
itself,  had  become  intolerable,  and  at  last  he  had 
determined,  in  what  he  clutched  at  as  a  last  revulsion, 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        181 

to  escape,  to  go  away  in  search  once  more  of  the 
spirit  of  things.  And  he  would  have  to  go  alone. 
That  was  the  point.  Amy,  with  her  massage  and  her 
rules  for  health,  an  ever-changing  bulwark  against 
the  fear  of  growing  old,  was  not  to  go  with  him.  And 
that  to-day  he  meant  to  tell  her.  She  had  become 
the  symbol  of  the  hateful  outer  world  that  is  always 
trying  to  break  in  on  the  confines  of  the  spirit.  She 
was  like  the  importunate  person  who  insists  on  read 
ing  the  newspaper  to  you  when  you  want  to  lie  on 
your  back  and  look  at  glory  overhead.  Since  his 
week  alone  in  the  town  house  he  had  begun  to  think 
he  actually  could  not  bear  to  set  eyes  on  Amy  again. 
But  he  had  to,  to  tell  her  how  far  he  was  going  away 
from  her,  perhaps  not  yet  how  far  he  had  already 
gone. 

When  he  alighted  at  the  station,  it  was  to  be 
greeted  by  official  solicitude  because  his  own  car  had 
gone  back  to  the  house,  having  brought  Mrs.  Dix- 
well  to  the  up-train.  Dixwell  passed  over  that  with 
a  little  quizzical  uplift  of  the  brows.  He  had  come, 
unannounced,  to  see  Amy,  and  Amy,  not  knowing 
her  cue,  had,  unannounced,  gone  up,  not  to  see  him, 
but,  his  prophetic  soul  suggested,  a  masseuse  or 
manicure.  Then  there  was,  the  station  master  men 
tioned  with  great  interest  in  submitting  all  the 
facts  in  the  case,  the  other  lady  who  had  come 
by  motor  from  the  Junction,  and,  not  finding  Mrs. 
Dixwell,  was  going  back  by  train.  There  she  was 
now. 

She  was  an  inconspicuous  figure  in  brown,  walking 


182        THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

at  the  end  of  the  platform,  and  Dixwell  at  once  made 
his  way  to  her.  At  his  near  approach  she  turned, 
and  he  had  time  to  see  she  was  brown-eyed  and  grey- 
haired,  with  an  indescribable  hint  of  lightness  and 
fitness  for  action,  when  her  rather  serious  face,  moved 
by  some  quick  thought,  lightened  and  bloomed 
abundantly.  He  had  scarcely  ever  seen  a  face 
change  into  such  radiant  anticipation.  Joy,  it 
must  be,  that  so  transformed  it,  though  why  she 
should  be  stirred  at  sight  of  him  he  would  have  been 
puzzled  to  tell. 

"  Why,"  said  she,  "  of  all  luck  in  the  world ! " 

She  was  smiling  at  him,  and  he  was  indubitably 
expected  to  smile.  But  she  could  translate  that 
hesitancy  of  his.  She  was  not  disheartened  by  it. 

"You  won't  know  me,"  she  said,  "though,  of 
course,  I  know  you.  I've  got  you  pasted  all  through 
my  literary  scrap-book.  I'm  only  Margaret  Whid- 
den.  Your  wife — Amy — calls  me  Meg." 

But  meanwhile  they  were  shaking  hands.  She 
had  a  firm,  elastic  clasp,  and  Dixwell  was  glad  to  en 
counter  it,  even  if  it  brought  no  credentials.  But 
now  he  could  meet  her  on  common  ground. 

"Of  course,"  said  he.  "I  don't  even  need  to 
know  you're  Meg.  You  write  stories.  Do  you 
suppose  I  haven't  read  'em?" 

She  laughed  and  showed  a  desirable  brand  of 
teeth. 

"Of  course  you  haven't,"  she  parried.  "You 
might  once  or  twice,  to  please  Amy.  But  they're 
just  little  workaday  stories.  Not  champagne,  some- 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        183 

body  said  of  'em  once:  just  good,  honest  hard 
eider." 

"But  why  aren't  you  up  at  the  house?"  he  asked. 
"Staying  the  night?  Waiting  for  Amy?" 

"  Can't  stop.  I  haven't  the  time.  I'm  just  back 
from  Cuba,  where  I've  been  hunting  some  local 
color  (hideous  phrase!),  and  I  felt  I'd  simply  got  to 
see  Amy.  It  was  a  matter  of  self-preservation. 
Amy  seemed  to  me  the  one  person  that  could  keep 
me  alive." 

Dixwell  caught  himself  back  from  a  candid  ex 
pression  of  wonder.  It  was  Amy  who  was  keeping 
him  from  living,  in  any  vivid  sense,  and  here  was 
somebody  fleeing  to  her  for  succor. 

"She's  away  for  the  day  only,"  said  he.  "Of 
course  you'll  stay." 

"No.  Honestly,  I  have  to  be  back  to  take  ship 
again  to-morrow.  I'm  not  to  see  her.  It  wasn't 
meant.  But  I've  seen  you." 

The  naive  wonder  of  the  tone  smote  him  with  some 
sort  of  remorse  at  being,  by  his  own  valuation,  so 
little  worth  seeing. 

"Why  not  come  on  to  the  house  with  me?"  he 
offered.  "You  had  the  day  for  Amy.  You  could 
give  it  to  me." 

She  was  frankly  delighted. 

"I  can't  imagine  anything  so  wonderful,"  she  de 
clared.  "You  see,  I  know  you.  So  far  as  a  body 
can  through  your  books,  I  know  you.  And  it's 
incredible  to  see  you  and  hear  you  inviting  plain 
Meg  to  eat  up  a  whole  day  of  your  time." 


184        THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

"  We  can  drive  up  the  house,"  said  he.  "Or" — he 
put  it  even  persuasively — "we  could  walk.  Good 
for  two  miles?" 

"Twenty,"  said  she.  "To  the  Pole,  if  you  like, 
or  through  the  Dark  Continent." 

"Then  I'll  telephone  them  to  have  lunch  ready, 
and  we'll  take  a  trot." 

He  led  her  straight  away  from  the  station  down  to 
the  cinder-strewn  street  where  the  coal- wharves  are, 
and  the  fish-shops  and  pleasant  runs  where  men  were 
shocking  clams  and  prowling  cats  sought  out  fish- 
heads.  Abruptly  this  way  of  maritime  trade  turned 
yet  more  intimately  toward  the  water,  and  they  took 
a  shingly  path  where  the  waves  came  lappingly. 
Then  Dixwell  picked  up  the  unfinished  thread  of 
talk  where  he  had  dropped  it. 

"If  you  think  I'm  such  great  shakes,  you  needn't 
have  waited  so  long  to  see  me.  Why  didn't  you 
come  before?  " 

"Oh,"  said  she,  "I  didn't  want  to  see  you." 
She  was  thinking  of  the  water  now  as  well  as  of 
the  happy  chance  of  meeting  him.  She  could 
hardly  keep  her  eyes  away  from  the  little  boats  at 
work  offshore,  but,  in  their  beauty,  so  evidently  at 
play.  "That's  why  I  telephoned  to  your  house 
this  morning  to  find  out  where  Amy  was,  where  you 
were.  If  you  were  down  here,  I  wasn't  coming." 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  you're  such  a  splendid  person.  If  I 
found  you  any  less  splendid  than  I  thought,  I  simply 
couldn't  bear  it." 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        185 

"Why  not,  again?" 

"Oh,  because  it  means  so  much  to  have  an  ab 
solutely  indestructible  fire-proof  hero." 

"We're  not  heroes  because  we  write  books,"  said 
Dixwell  shamefacedly. 

"No,  but  you're  pretty  nice,  you  know.  You've 
done  the  square  thing  right  along.  You  haven't 
posed.  You  keep  out  of  the  limelight.  You  cut 
your  hair  and  wear  stiff  collars.  And  you've  made 
Amy  happy." 

This  was  rather  sickening  in  view  of  the  ordeal 
he  had  prepared  for  Amy. 

"How  do  you  know  I've  made  Amy  happy?"  he 
asked  miserably. 

"It's  easy  to  find  out.  I've  seen  people  that  know 
her.  They  tell  me  she  doesn't  change.  She  keeps 
her  figure  and  her  complexion  and  her  hair.  If  that 
isn't  the  story  of  a  happy  woman,  I'd  like  to  know 
what  is.  And  you've  done  it,"  she  ended  trium 
phantly. 

There  wasn't  really  anything  for  capping  so  patent 
a  conclusion,  and  he  could  only  rejoin,  in  a  half 
hearted  way : 

"You  know  you're  flattering  me  most  outra 
geously." 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  not,"  said  she.  This  time  she  was 
even  gravely  convincing  about  it.  "I'm  told  Amy 
hasn't  grown  old.  And  she  would  have  if  you  hadn't 
seen  to  it.  Every  woman  does  unless  her  heart's 
satisfied.  She  can't  help  it." 


186        THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

Dixwell  had  an  almost  overwhelming  impulse  of 
candor.  He  wanted  to  say: 

"My  dear  Meg  Whidden,  since  that  is  your  name, 
Amy  has  simply  not  grown  old  because  she  has  de 
voted  every  fibre  of  her  being  to  keeping  the  out 
ward  signs  of  youth.  She  began  to  fight  wrinkles 
before  the  wrinkles  came.  She  has  been  for  the 
last  twenty -five  years  in  a  perpetual  state  of  mobiliza 
tion,  and  as  soon  as  the  foe  peers  over  the  border 
Amy  is  there  to  smash  him.  She  massages,  she 
diets,  she  walks,  she  waves,  she  powders,  she  vi 
brates,  she  bathes  in  the  devil  knows  what.  That's 
why  Amy  is  a  well-conditioned  little  animal  at  an 
age  when  she  might  be  a  grandmother,  and  look  like 


one." 


It  seemed  to  him,  as  he  stared  at  the  curling  waves 
and  smelled  the  tang  of  air  and  seaweed,  and  the 
keen  sun  warmed  his  face,  that  on  such  a  day,  in 
such  company,  he  might  speak  the  truth.  It  would 
be  like  getting  a  burden  off  his  soul  and  handing  it 
to  some  one  else  who  was  strong  and  willing,  and 
would  carry  it  for  a  while.  If  he  could  tell  this  Meg 
how  he  hated  life  as  Amy  and  he  had  combined  to 
make  it,  the  hatefulness  of  it  might  be  slightly 
purged  away.  But  what  he  did  elect  was  a  dull  re 
turn  to  a  late  milestone  in  their  talk. 

"You  don't  say  why  you're  so  discouraged  your 
self.  Why  do  you  think  Amy  could  set  you  up 
again?" 

She  turned  the  brightest  of  looks  on  him,  all  made 
up  of  a  gallant  courage  and  the  peculiar  hardihood 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        187 

of  those  for  whose  discomfiture  nobody  cares  so  very 
much,  and  who  have  therefore  ceased  to  care  them 
selves. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "I'm  growing  old." 

Dixwell  stopped  in  his  walk  to  look  at  her,  lost  a 
step,  and  then  went  on  again.  Was  that  how  they 
were  afflicted,  the  three  of  them?  Were  they  over 
whelmed  by  middle  age  already  and  too  weakened  to 
withstand  the  onslaught  of  the  later  enemy,  so  that 
they  could  only  lie  palsied  in  the  trenches  awaiting 
an  attack  they  had  no  weapons  to  repulse?  He 
considered  her  now  keenly  in  his  artist's  way  of 
memorizing  the  human  creature  he  might  want  to 
reproduce.  She  was,  in  this  breeze  and  sun,  which 
had  called  the  blood  into  her  tanned  cheeks,  bril 
liantly  wholesome.  Only  she  had  the  indefinable 
air  of  not  caring  for  the  detail  of  her  clothes  or  for 
her  bearing.  She  was  rather  like  a  snug,  strong 
bird  fitted  for  the  life  of  the  air  and  not  heeding  its 
own  shining  feathers  so  long  as  they  insured  fleet- 
ness  and  warmth.  What  could  she  know  about  the 
smaller  vanities  of  womankind? 

"You  wouldn't  mind  wrinkles?"  he  ventured. 
"When  they  come  you  won't  care.  You'll  be  think 
ing  about  something  else.  Better  things,  bigger. 
I  can't  imagine  you  flinching." 

"But  I  do  flinch,"  said  she,  "I  think  of  it  all 
the  time." 

"It?" 

"Yes.  Growing  old.  I'm  willing  to  die.  I'm  not 
willing  to  change."  The  mention  of  it  had  brought  a 


188       THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

hot  rebellion  into  her  voice.  She  looked  at  him,  he 
thought,  as  if  he  had  made  the  laws  of  change. 

"I  can't  see,"  he  said,  "how  Amy  is  going  to  help 
you." 

"Why,  because  she  hasn't  altered.  Because,  at 
my  age,  she  is  young  and  sweet  and  dear,  and  she 
will  be  to  the  end.  You'll  attend  to  that.  And  I 
thought  it  would  rest  me  to  see  her." 

She  said  this  so  wistfully  that  Dixwell  suddenly 
hated  himself  because  he  couldn't  comfort  her. 

"But,  God  bless  me!"  he  said,  "you're  not  dwell 
ing  on  these  things?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  from  her  unthinking  candor — 
"all  the  time." 

So  was  Amy,  he  could  have  told  her.  And  it  was 
a  good  thing  Amy  had  not  been  here  this  day,  or 
they  might  have  sat  down  to  a  confabulation  over 
the  treatment  of  chins  and  the  proper  diet  for  the 
middle-aged. 

"That  is,"  she  went  on,  "it's  in  the  background. 
I  believe  it  is  for  every  woman,  if  she's  got  a  little 
hateful  thermometer  to  register  things.  Vanity? 
No.  It's  not  vanity.  Something  deep  as  nature. 
Why,  I  know  the  very  day  a  certain  wrinkle  came 
over  the  edge  of  my  left  eyebrow.  I  know  the  year 
my  right  thumb-nail  got  a  little  ribbed.  I'm  telling 
you  all  this  because  you  are  you,  and  I  never  shall 
see  you  again.  And  you're  not  like  anybody  else. 
You  know  all  kinds  of  secrets  of  all  kinds  of  hearts. 
And  you  keep  them,  too.  You  won't  tell.  But  you 
may  tell.  You  may  tell  Amy." 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        189 

"  No,"  said  he,  gravely.  "  I  sha'n't  tell  Amy." 
"And  you'll  wonder,"  she  went  on,  "even  you, 
why  I  care  so  terribly,  when  I'm  not  a  beauty. 
Well,  I  can't  tell  you.  But  it's  my  impression  that  if 
a  woman  sees  herself  changing,  growing  less  young, 
it's  harder  than  any  death  she  will  ever  be  called  upon 
to  die." 

"You  amaze  me,"  said  he.  "It's  incredible." 
"That's  because  you  live  with  Amy,  and  you  keep 
her  so  contented  she  doesn't  change.  I  don't  be 
lieve  she  even  stops  to  think  she  might.  That's 
the  wonder  of  a  life  like  yours.  You've  thought  of 
big  things  all  the  time  till  you  don't  remember  the 
little  things  exist." 

He  wanted  to  cry  out  upon  her  irritably  that  she'd 
no  business  to  assume  such  things  about  him,  such 
star-piercing,  mountain-climbing  things.  Here  was 
he  at  the  end  of  his  foolish  tether,  and  she  was  telling 
him  he  was  quite  gloriously  free.  And  with  no 
proof  save  that  it  must  be  so. 

The  day  brightened  steadily  as  they  went.  Then 
the  kindly  breeze  died  down,  and  the  air  was  soft 
as  June.  She  took  off  her  coat,  and  he  carried  it  for 
her.  He  even  guessed,  in  his  quick  darts  at  unex 
pected  emotions,  that,  in  her  hero-worship,  she 
would  prize  the  coat  forever  because  he  had  carried 
it.  So  many  women  had  behaved  like  imbeciles 
about  a  writing  man.  He  had  scorned  them  for  it; 
but  with  her  he  felt  only  an  ache  of  pity.  She  was 
clinging  to  him  for  heartening,  and  she  did  not  know 
how  ineffective  he  was  to  cling  to. 


190        THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

"Sha'n't  we  sit  down,"  he  said,  "here  by  the 
boulder?"  '* 

"I'm  not  tired." 

"No.  Not  because  we're  tired,  but  because  it's 
fun.  It's  a.  kind  of  playhouse,  do  you  see?  We  can 
make  sand  forts  and  gardens." 

It  was  a  shallow  cave,  the  side  of  the  boulder 
turned  to  the  sea,  and  Meg  was  immediately  alive 
to  its  playhouse  possibilities.  She  sat  flat  in  the 
warm  sand  and  began  industriously  building.  At 
first  he  built  with  her,  but  presently  he  lay  back  and 
watched,  and  she  built  alone.  He  had  a  disturbing 
sense  of  calling  to  her  across  the  chasm  made  by  her 
misunderstanding,  of  begging  her  to  leap  it  and  ac 
cept  him  for  a  plain,  average  man  who  had  failed,  and 
see  if  she  couldn't  pull  down  his  vision  for  him  again 
and  hold  it  for  a  moment  in  her  two  hands  till  he 
should  feed  his  eyes  upon  it  rapturously.  But  there 
was  her  own  need  of  him  as  she  had  imagined  him. 
He  was  her  vision,  he  and  Amy  and  their  wedded 
harmony.  At  least  he  wanted  to  talk  hard  and  fast 
and  spur  her  on  to  talk,  because  this  day  was  pre 
cious  to  him,  and  there  wouldn't  be  much  more  of  it. 

"I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  to  start  her,  "you  think 
you're  going  to  hate  growing  old." 

She  left  her  excavating  for  a  moment  and  turned 
to  him  her  grave,  absorbed  face. 

"It's  the  Dark  Tower,"  she  said.  "You  can't 
tell  what  it  will  be  till  you  get  to  it.  But  all  the 
time  you've  got  to  keep  on  marching — or  riding — 
and  suddenly  you're  there." 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        191 

Something  stronger  than  pity  came  over  him,  a 
passion  of  sympathy  he  had  not  felt  for  years.  He 
wanted  to  tell  her — or  to  have  some  man  tell  her,  for 
that  was  the  way  he  put  it — that  the  Tower  wouldn't 
have  dungeons.  It  would  have  only  light  sweet 
spaces,  and  love  would  be  there  and  joyance,  and  her 
cheek  needn't  grow  pale  because  the  blood  could 
be  kissed  into  it.  But  he  only  said : 

"Maybe  there'll  be  sun  on  the  Tower." 

"Yes,  there  may.  Enough  to  show  how  dark  it  is. 
But  inside  it's  black  as  pitch.  With  slits  for  win 
dows — I  don't  remember  what  they  call  them." 

"Well,"  said  he,  "if  we're  all  destined  for  the 
Tower,  what  makes  you  assume  Amy  and  I  are  going 
to  escape  it?" 

"Oh,"  said  she,  "you  and  Amy '11  get  there,  ul 
timately,  of  course.  Only  you're  so  occupied  in 
looking  at  the  scenery  you  won't  have  time  to  dread 
the  Tower  at  all.  You'll  get  there  before  you  know 
it.  And  even  then  I  dare  say  there'll  be  so  much 
light  on  the  Tower— your  kind  of  light — you  won't 
think  it's  dark  at  all." 

He  couldn't  help  being  curious  about  her  attitude 
to  the  palliations  Amy  found  soporific  on  her  way  to 
the  inevitable  end. 

" Now  you  know,"  said  he — "I  speak  as  unavailing 
man,  you  must  remember — there  are  alleviations, 
they  say — when  you  actually  come  to  it — facial 
massage  and  that  sort  of  thing.  When  you  actually 
do  begin  to  see  the  outline  of  the  Tower  you  could 
stop  and  organize  for  the  final  march." 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

"No,"  said  she,  sweeping  down  a  sand-pile  with  a 
turn  of  her  brown  hand,  "that's  no  good." 

"No  good?  The  advertising  pages  of  the  maga 
zines  tell  me  it  is  the  despairing  last  resort." 

"I  don't  mean  trumpery  things  of  that  sort,"  she 
explained  absently.  "They're  no  more  good  than 
this  sand  fort  when  the  tide  is  on.  Oh,  no !  I  mean 
dying  game,  either  being  so  splendid  you  aren't 
absorbed  in  yourself  at  all,  or  so  happy — like  Amy — 
and  not  sitting  down  to  watch  yourself  wither.  You 
see,  when  we  were  young  we  had  the  vision.  True 
or  false,  we  had  it.  And  now  it's  gone — for  most  of 


us." 


This  was,  pang  for  pang,  his  own  disease.  It  was 
almost  word  for  word  as  he  would  have  put  it. 
While  he  looked  in  silence  at  the  play  of  her  brown 
hands,  shaping  and  destroying  the  mobile  drift  of 
sand,  his  inner  hunger  was  crying  out  to  her  again 
to  answer  him  across  the  chasm  of  his  silence.  It 
seemed  to  him  at  the  moment  that  she  only,  through 
her  own  hunger,  knew  how  to  estimate  his. 

"We  are  exactly  alike,"  he  wanted  to  tell  her, 
"sinking  in  the  sea  of  inexorable  change." 

Amy  was  no  more  to  him  than  the  wreckage  of 
a  dream.  He  and  this  other  fugitive  were  alone, 
banded  by  their  common  peril  into  a  limitless  com 
munion.  What  if  they  could  float  together  beyond 
the  margin  of  their  fears  to  some  beach  in  the  sun? — 
the  beach,  he  knew,  was  the  inevitable  suggestion  of 
this  where  they  sat  at  their  careless  ease  and  com 
pared  notes  about  their  past,  the  present  shipwreck, 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        193 

and  the  chances  for  the  future.  What  bit  of  flotsam 
would  bear  them  up  and  keep  them  breathing  while 
they  floated  there?  Suddenly,  he  saw,  he  must  be 
the  rescuer.  He  must  build  the  raft  out  of  his  own 
discarded  beatitudes,  to  take  her  to  the  land.  She 
would  sit  there  alone  and  listen  to  the  monotone  of  a 
quiet  sea,  and  in  the  old  way  of  the  spiritually  credu 
lous  hold  the  shell  of  belief  to  her  ear  and  fancy  the 
rushing  of  her  own  life  was  the  sweep  of  eternity. 
He  mustn't,  even  if  he  could  sacrifice  Amy,  ask  her  for 
understanding,  because  he  had  got  to  accord  it  to 
her.  She  saw  in  him  the  creature  who,  from  an  emi 
nence  of  authority,  was  qualified  to  speak.  There 
fore  out  of  his  hunger  and  his  fears  he  would  make 
the  raft  to  float  her. 

"Look  here,"  said  he,  "if  I  were  you  I  wouldn't 
be  afraid  of  the  Dark  Tower." 

"Wouldn't  you?"  She  turned  upon  him  a  whim 
sically  bright  face.  "Oh,  yes,  you  would — if  you 
were  I." 

"No,  because" — he  hit  upon  this  quite  at  random; 
indeed  something  seemed  to  put  it  into  his  head — 
"because,  you  know,  I  fancy  we  were  intended  to 
hate  the  Dark  Tower.  It's  a  part  of  the  beneficence 
of  things." 

"Why  is  it?" 

She  was  softly  grave  now,  in  an  ingenuous  way  he 
had  hated  in  other  women.  This  was  the  air  they 
had  when  they  wanted  him  to  dogmatize  or  do  the 
big  bow-wow  about  his  work.  With  them  it  made 
him  turn  about  and  run,  or  at  least  grow  quite 


194       THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

crudely  commonplace;  but  in  her  it  was  only  soften 
ing. 

"Don't  you  see,  if  we  hate  the  Tower  we  shall  try 
to  get  out  of  it  just  as  fast  as  we  can?  And  find  out 
what's  on  the  other  side,  or  at  least  set  our  minds  on 
it." 

She  knit  her  brows. 

"Let  me  see,"  she  said,  "what  is  the  Tower  now, 
old  age — or  death?" 

"Age.  After  that  the  other  side,  the  side  you 
can't  in  the  least  see  as  you're  approaching.  I  fancy 
you'd  begin  to  see  it  from  the  slits  of  windows  on  the 
other  side.  That's  why  you  can't  go  round  the 
Tower.  You've  got  to  go  through." 

"You  think,"  she  said,  "we're  to  be  allowed  to 
hate  our  bodies,  to  be  willing  to  give  them  up?" 

"Yes.  The  chrysalis  is  rather  a  tight  kind  of 
shroud,  you  know.  I  suppose  it  gets  tighter  and 
tighter — while  the  wings  are  forming." 

He  could  have  laughed  at  this,  the  pious  platitude 
adapted  to  minds  more  primitive  than  hers.  But  she 
was  in  such  deadly  earnest  she  couldn't  even  see  it 
was  a  platitude,  and  he  carried  such  accredited 
authority  that  whatever  he  said  she  accepted  humbly. 
He  wondered  if  that  was  the  way  the  preacher  some 
times  felt,  chanting  the  offices  while  his  heart  bled 
with  doubt. 

"If  I  could  think  it!"  she  began,  passionately. 
"But  I  will  think  it.  You  tell  me,  and  it  must  be 


so." 


We  must  meet  again,"  he  said  hurriedly. 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        195 

This  slipped  out.  After  all,  he  knew  they  couldn't 
meet.  They  couldn't  have  this  lovely  race,  running 
side  by  side,  each  with  glance  fixed  on  the  goal  and 
yet  always  side  by  side.  They  had  left  Amy  behind 
at  her  tiring-glass.  She  wouldn't  even  know  they 
were  off  on  their  quest  for  the  farther  stars.  She 
would  be  too  absorbed  in  painting  out  the  lines 
of  life  from  her  faded  face.  The  woman  here  filled 
his  vision.  She  topped  the  sea  and  sky.  It  was 
not  only  that  she  felt  his  hunger,  but  that  she  was,  in 
an  inexplicable  way,  his.  It  was  immaterial  that  he 
alone  knew  it.  If  they  were  allowed  to  live  along  to 
gether,  she  would  grow  into  oneness  with  him  with 
out  a  pang,  for  she  need  never  see  the  lesser  self  in 
him.  Her  idealism  was  in  equal  measure  with  her 
honesty.  She  would  offer  her  hero  all  kinds  of  wor 
ship,  because  a  hero  may  demand  and  must  receive. 
But  she  was  denying  him  at  the  outset. 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  told  you  I'm  going  to  sail 
to-morrow.  And  it's  just  as  well.  You've  given  me 
enough  to  live  on  for  a  long,  long  life." 

"And  you  won't  see  Amy?" 

He  wanted  to  assure  himself  of  that. 

"I  can't.  And  it's  just  as  well.  Tell  her  about 
it.  Tell  her  how  you've  helped  me,  and  tell  her  I'm 
going  to  keep  her — and  her  youth  and  her  happiness 
— for  my  vision." 

Then  Dixwell  pulled  his  hat  over  his  eyes  so  that 
he  should  seem  to  be  looking  at  the  sea,  but  he  looked 
only  at  her  hands,  busy  there  in  the  sand,  shaping 
and  destroying  and  so  wonderfully  alive.  Perhaps 


196        THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

he  half  hid  his  face  from  her  because  he  could  spare 
thought  to  wonder  what  she  might  see  in  it,  what 
moved  ecstasy  of  love  and  longing.  And  she  did 
turn  to  him  at  last. 

"Really,"  said  she,  "you  have  straightened  it  all 
out.  You've  made  it  seem — life,  I  mean — like  a 
journey.  Not  a  blooming  and  decay.  I  sha'n't 
forget.  You  and  Amy  will  be  in  New  York  this 
winter?" 

Suddenly  he  laughed.  This  was  the  winter  he 
had  meant  to  start  on  his  adventure,  but  chiefly 
an  adventure  of  the  mind  and  without  Amy. 

"Yes,"  said  he.  "We  shall  be  in  New  York— 
as  usual." 

"What  made  you  laugh?" 

He  considered. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "it  was  partly  because  you're 
such  an  idealizing  little  person,  and  our  staying  in 
New  York  is  so  humdrum.  I  shall  be  at  work — 
just  as  usual.  And  Amy'll  be — just  as  usual." 

"She'll  help  you  work." 

Again  he  hesitated,  and  then  he  said,  still  gravely: 

"Amy'll  do  her  very  best." 

After  that  he  helped  her  plan  a  garden  in  the  sand, 
and  they  quarreled  over  it,  and  she  swept  out  his 
paths  with  a  flick  of  her  hand,  and  then,  talking 
about  gardens,  they  found  they  really  agreed  per 
fectly,  and  also  about  houses,  too.  When  he  pulled 
out  his  watch  he  couldn't  believe  it,  and  couldn't 
believe  the  sun  punctually  overhead. 

"When  the  waves  get  to  that  three-cornered  rock 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        197 

down  there,"  said  he,  "it'll  be  time  to  run — for 
luncheon." 

So  they  played  a  little  more,  and  the  wave  came, 
and  Dixwell  got  on  his  feet  and  gave  her  a  hand,  and 
she  childishly  besought  him  not  to  destroy  their  last 
garden,  but  leave  it  for  the  sea.  And  they  climbed 
the  cliff  and  went  on  to  his  proud  house,  where 
autumn  yellows  lighted  the  great  garden,  and  he, 
with  a  quickened  heart  and  some  ceremony  she  did 
not  see  the  truth  of,  brought  her  under  his  roof.  At 
the  table  he  noted  with  a  wild  momentary  delight 
that  she  had  been  put  in  Amy's  place,  and  that  they 
were  to  have  for  an  hour  at  least  the  intimacy  of 
household  ways.  She  had  what  he  knew  she  would 
always  remember  as  a  beautiful  time,  and  from  his 
dream  he  watched  her  in  a  still  content.  She 
laughed  at  them  both  for  being  so  hungry;  but, 
though  he  ate,  he  hardly  knew  what,  and  it  was  she 
who  roused  him  out  of  his  dream.  It  was  nearly 
three,  she  said,  and  she  had  to  take  the  little  local 
train  to  the  town  where  she  had  left  her  friend  and 
the  friend's  car.  She  had  not  allowed  it  to  come  for 
her.  She  wasn't  very  fond  of  cars,  and  it  suited  her 
better  to  go  a  part  of  the  way  by  train.  So  they 
started  out  together  for  the  station.  Again  she 
elected  to  walk,  and  Dixwell  had  a  sense  now  of 
holding  her  back,  mentally,  of  some  part  of  him  cry 
ing  out  to  her: 

"  Don't  leave  me.     Don't  go." 

He  wondered  what  she  would  do  if  he  should  take 
her  hand  as  they  walked  and  hold  it  all  the  way. 


198       THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER 

He  had  an  idea  she  would  gravely  permit  it,  as  one 
permits  a  hero's  indisputable  rights.  What  if  he 
said: 

"I  love  you  and  we're  going  together." 

Then  he  would  have  to  explain  that  he  was  not  the 
sort  of  fellow  to  say  it  after  every  afternoon  at  the 
sea,  that  he  had  in  fact  never  said  it  in  his  life  except 
to  Amy.  And  it  would  bring  the  sky  down  about 
then*  ears.  It  might  crush  him,  that  avenging  sky, 
and  for  that  he  didn't  care.  It  would  disarrange 
Amy,  and  for  that  he  didn't  care  much,  either,  as 
suming  that  Amy  would  find  ample  resource  in 
her  campaign  against  the  god  of  time.  But  what 
it  would  surely  crush,  the  shattered  sky,  would  be 
the  raft  of  escape  he  had  built  that  afternoon  for 
Meg  Whidden — built  it  strongly  out  of  hero  wor 
ship  and  platitudes  and  sheer  love  for  her.  He 
could  see  how  the  water  would  splash  up  about  it  as 
she  and  the  raft  went  down.  No,  of  all  earthly 
things,  that  raft  must  float. 

She  had  only  a  minute  before  her  train,  and  in 
that  minute  he  got  a  firm  grip  of  her  hand  and  held 
it. 

"Love  to  Amy,"  said  she,  and  looked  at  him  with 
clear,  candid  eyes. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "and  love  to  you." 

This  he  thought  he  could  permit  himself.  The 
ribbon  of  steam  was  forming  down  the  track,  and 
suddenly  his  sense  of  her  dearness  and  his  loss  broke 
from  him  in  the  one  word  of  old  significance: 

"Remember!" 


THE  FLAGS  ON  THE  TOWER        199 

She  smiled  happily;  whatever  the  day  had  meant 
for  her,  she  would  not  forget. 

"We  won't  be  afraid,"  she  said.  "Of  the  Dark 
Tower,  you  know.  We'll  put  flags  on  it." 

Then  the  ribbon  of  steam  was  nearer,  and  then 
was  flying  back  to  him  like  a  signal,  and  his  empty 
hand  was  warm. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

THE  Benedicts  were  at  Amalfi  when  they  got  the 
letter  from  Ferdie  which  set  them  all  by  the  ears. 
They  were  sitting  in  the  Cappuccini  cloister  eating 
bread  and  honey  and  drinking  tea  at  five  in  the  after 
noon:  Gregory  Benedict,  the  head  of  the  family,  a 
compact  man  of  a  modest  portliness  and  a  disposi 
tion  to  yield  you  the  right  of  way  in  any  matter  not 
concerning  his  particular  business;  Mrs.  Benedict, 
of  an  equal  age  and  a  complete  set  of  carefully  ar 
ranged  ideals;  Helen,  a  tall  daughter  with  a  surprised 
and  inquiring  expression  of  countenance;  and  Bene 
dict's  sister,  known  as  Aunt  Harriet.  She,  this 
aunt,  who  stood  to  the  family  and  indeed  to  herself 
as  one  decreed  to  be  an  aunt  and  little  more,  was 
not  yet  fifty;  but  she  had  taught  in  a  country  semi 
nary  too  fixed  in  its  inherited  traditions  ever  to 
become  a  college,  and  her  standards  of  beauty  and 
conduct  were  those  of  a  day  when  women  in  like 
responsible  positions  wore  dresses  prematurely  mid 
dle-aged  and  perhaps  did  their  own  hemstitching. 
Aunt  Harriet  was  really  extremely  handsome,  except 
that  she  lacked  the  bravado  which  is  inevitable  to 
all  but  the  purest  beauty.  She  had  no  audacity  to 
set  her  off.  When  her  brown  eyes  sought  you  they 
said:  "Please  excuse  me.  I  am  not  intrusive.  I 
really  have  a  purpose  in  looking.  I  am  going  to  make 

200 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  201 

a  remark."  Of  any  calculated  commerce  of  glances 
and  the  repertory  known  in  literature  under  "flash 
ing,"  "glancing,"  "sparkling,"  she  had  the  vaguest 
knowledge  by  hearsay.  Her  wonderfully  white 
teeth  disclosed  themselves  only  when  something 
accredited  as  humorous  dared  them  to  display. 
And  her  clothes,  like  the  clothes  of  all  female  Bene 
dicts,  were  made  by  a  dressmaker  of  high  ideals  but 
inadequate  equipment,  who  needed  the  work;  they 
were,  as  Ferdie,  Helen's  married  sister,  had  confided 
to  her  husband,  after  three  months'  travel  and  the 
moulting  of  like  raiment,  "sights."  But  they  were 
flagrantly  honest  clothes.  They  looked  like  what 
they  were,  the  covering  of  a  highly  self-respecting 
family  of  inherited  modesty  of  station,  living  outside 
a  country  town  so  that  father  might  be  near  his 
manufacturing  plant. 

It  was  six  months  before  that  Aunt  Laura,  Mr. 
Benedict's  aunt,  had  died  and  left  him  her  very 
considerable  fortune,  and  it  had  seemed  best  then 
to  fulfil  the  breathless  purpose  of  years  and  go  abroad 
for  the  summer.  They  had  never  contemplated 
going  save  as  a  body.  They  were  a  very  united 
family.  But  Ferdie,  named  Fernandina,  in  regular 
descent  from  an  ancestor  whose  father  had  been 
wrecked  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  had  gone  three 
months  before  them  with  her  husband,  who  was 
general  superintendent  of  the  Benedict  factory. 
It  had  meant  a  good  deal  to  Benedict  to  give  him 
up  at  that  time;  but  Ferdie  had  been  so  passionately 
set  upon  it  that  the  ordinary  ways  of  withstanding 


202  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

her  had  been  exhausted  about  the  time  she  developed 
nerves.  This  was  her  unimagined  trump-card,  and 
the  family  had  played  all  they  had.  So  Ferdie  had 
gone,  and  here  was  the  letter  to  say  that  she  and 
Preble  would  meet  them  at  Ravello,  and  they  could 
talk  over  things  there.  She  thought  it  best  to  give 
them  an  idea,  so  that  they  might  be  considering  it. 
She  wanted  to  leave  Preble.  She  meant  to  live 
abroad.  It  would  be  perfectly  easy  on  what  father 
could  allow  her  (it  never  occurred  to  her  that  Aunt 
Laura's  money  did  not  belong  to  all  the  family 
equally,  and  it  certainly  did  not  occur  to  the  family 
as  they  read).  She  supposed  they'd  noticed  that 
she  and  Preble  weren't  suited  to  each  other.  She 
realized  now  that  she'd  always  known  it,  though 
coming  over  here  had  made  it  so  apparent  that  she 
simply  found  there  was  but  one  thing  to  do. 

This  letter  it  was  that  turned  the  Benedicts  home 
sick  in  the  face  of  Italy.  It  robbed  the  honey  of  its 
tang  and  made  the  enchantment  of  that  shore  as 
idle  as  a  painted  screen.  Mrs.  Benedict,  after  a 
half -cup  of  tea,  had  taken  the  letter  again  out  of  her 
bag  and  read  it  for  the  fifth  time.  It  was  not  a 
long  one.  She  really  knew  it  by  heart.  There  had 
been  no  discussion  of  it;  but  now  she  addressed  a 
question  as  directly  to  her  husband  as  if  he  and  she 
had  been  alone. 

"I  never  noticed  she  and  Preble  didn't  get  on  all 
right,  did  you?" 

He  shook  his  head.  He  could  scarcely  trust  him 
self  with  a  subject  so  shockingly  alien  to  business. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

These  crude  avowals  of  incompatibility  were  what, 
with  a  fastidiousness  of  which  he  had  almost  been 
ashamed,  as  too  finicking,  he  had  always  wished  the 
girls  wouldn't  read  in  the  morning  paper.  And 
yet  he  had  been  too  finicking  even  to  forbid  their 
being  read. 

"Treble's  a  queer  Dick,"  said  Helen.  "He  never 
has  anything  to  say  for  himself." 

She  offered  it  impetuously,  her  cheeks  flushing,  as 
if  it  were  difficult  to  confide  to  her  elders  even  so 
small  an  instance  of  emotional  bias.  This  was  an 
old-fashioned  family.  They  had  the  most  intimate 
confidences  in  regard  to  the  renewal  of  rugs  and  the 
desirability  of  transplanting  the  phlox,  and  they  did 
pass  letters  about  at  the  breakfast-table.  They 
would  have  said  they  had  no  secrets  from  one  an 
other,  and  now  that  Ferdie  had  winged  them  equally 
with  this  arrow  cunningly  contrived  to  pin  them  all 
in  a  bunch,  they  hung  there,  with  no  power  beyond 
a  sympathetic  flutter. 

Aunt  Harriet  spoke  now,  with  a  like  impetuous 
appearance  of  not  daring  to  hesitate  lest  she  find 
herself  choked  by  custom. 

"I  understand  what  Ferdie  means.  I  understand 
perfectly." 

Mrs.  Benedict  turned  upon  her  in  an  extremity  of 
surprise,  took  up  her  lorgnon,  and  then  dropped  it 
with  an  apparent  recollection  that  this  was  only 
Harriet  and  supplementary  lenses  needn't  help. 
Mr.  Benedict,  too,  turned,  and  with  more  purpose. 
His  plump  person  bumped  slightly  in  its  chair,  as 


204  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

if  it  remarked,  "Is  it  really  Harriet  speaking?" 
But  all  he  could  say  was  to  inquire  of  Harriet,  with 
a  species  of  hostility,  as  if  to  ask  also  how  a  mere 
aunt  could  be  so  clever  when  the  authors  of  Ferdie's 
being  found  themselves  mired: 

"You  do,  do  you?" 

Aunt  Harriet  had  flushed  a  deep,  becoming  red. 
She  knew,  in  the  depths  of  her  memory,  why  she 
could  speak  up  for  Ferdie  and  the  miscalculated 
forces  of  nature.  Aunt  Harriet  had  her  secret,  not 
more  than  three  weeks  old.  It  went  back  to  a  night 
in  Naples  when  she  had  run  out  of  the  pension  bare 
headed  to  post  a  letter.  Immediately  she  was  out 
side  the  court,  the  brazen  spell  of  the  city  had  as 
sailed  her,  and  she  had  fled  on,  a  green  letterbox, 
such  as  she  knew  at  home,  for  her  objective,  but 
really  with  something  crying  out  inside  her,  bidding 
her  speed  and  speed,  and  never  stop  until  she  came 
on  illimitable  joy  whereof  this  pageant  was  the 
herald.  And  as  she  paused  to  look  up  at  the  Bertol- 
ini,  in  its  fire-fly  sea  of  lights,  she  felt  an  arm  about 
her  waist.  It  did  not  feel  startling,  although  no 
arm  save  that  of  a  worshipping  school-girl  had  ever 
lain  there  before.  It  was  as  familiar  as  her  belt,  and 
Harriet  turned,  with  a  pleased  expectancy,  and  saw 
beside  her  an  Italian  officer.  His  expression  suited 
the  act  he  had  just  performed.  It  was  audacious, 
yet  humbly  adoring,  and  Aunt  Harriet  found  it 
exactly  right.  She  did  turn  about,  her  letter  still 
in  her  hand,  and  he  turned  with  her,  and  thus  en 
circled  she  walked  back  again  to  the  pension  in  a 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  205 

trance  of  acquiescence.  At  the  door  she  paused,  and 
the  arm  fell  from  her  waist.  There  was  a  step  on 
the  stone-paved  court  within:  the  porter,  Harriet, 
and  perhaps  her  officer  also,  knew.  He  fell  back  a 
little  into  the  shadow,  brought  his  heels  together, 
and  made  her  an  enchanting  bow.  Aunt  Harriet 
went  in,  her  letter  still  in  her  hand.  She  had  for 
gotten  that  the  porter  might  post  it,  and  indeed  it 
was  never  posted,  for  it  was  to  one  of  her  pupils, 
and  Aunt  Harriet,  with  a  vague  besetment  that  it 
had  somehow  shared  in  the  profligacy  of  her  adven 
ture,  tore  it  up  as  unworthy  to  invade  the  maiden 
precincts  of  the  young.  But  that  progress  had  told 
her  what  flames  might  be  burning  under  the  inher 
ited  tradition  of  New  England  snows.  Aunt  Har 
riet  knew  in  her  soul  that  the  gold-laced  swain  had 
but  spent  an  idle  moment  in  the  assault  of  her  waist, 
and  yet  something  in  her  told  her  a  veil  of  high 
meaning  had  dropped  on  it  from  the  romance  of 
the  world.  He  would  never  see  her  again;  she  never 
wanted  to  see  him  again — and  yet  somewhere,  said 
that  voice  of  lying  paradox,  he  was  seeking  her, 
somewhere,  in  a  fuller  paradise  than  Italy,  they 
would  meet.  So  it  was  out  of  a  more  extended 
experience  than  any  Benedict,  she  believed,  had  ever 
enjoyed  that  she  faced  her  brother,  whom  she 
respected  illimitably  both  as  man  and  brother,  and 
returned : 

"Yes.  I  know  all  about  it.  I  think  Ferdie's 
probably  right." 

Gregory    continued    looking    at   her    and,    quite 


206  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

unaided  by  any  natural  facility,  accomplished  the 
feat  of  becoming  pop-eyed. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "by  George!" 

"But,  Harriet,"  said  Mrs.  Benedict,  also  regarding 
her  from  a  high  degree  of  amazement,  "you  don't 
mean  you're  prepared  for  it?  Has  Ferdie  ever 
brought  this  up  before?" 

"No,"  said  Aunt  Harriet  defiantly,  "but  I'm  not 
surprised." 

They  were  all  three  looking  at  her,  she  knew,  with 
unvarying  degrees  of  perplexity,  at  which  she  was, 
again,  not  surprised.  They  could  not  see  the  Italian 
officer  in  the  background. 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Benedict,  "of  course  we  shall 
all  stand  by  Ferdie." 

"  God ! "  said  Gregory,  the  solemn  adjuration  as  un 
expected  to  him  as  to  the  others.  "I  guess  we  shall." 

Of  the  accompanying  shock  that  Preble,  whom  he 
had  considered  worthy  of  marrying  a  Benedict, 
had  been  found  wanting  by  one  of  the  most  precious 
Benedicts  of  the  clan,  he  could  not  speak.  It  was 
all  very  well  to  stand  by  Ferdie.  That  was  nature. 
But  that  a  chap  he  had  believed  in  as  he  had  in 
Preble,  liked  him,  indeed,  too  much  to  need  to  say 
anything  about  it,  that  Preble  should  in  some  unpar 
donable  fashion  kick  over  the  traces,  shook  the 
foundations  of  his  house.  Preble's  side  of  it  was  too 
awful  to  be  spoken  of,  except  perhaps  by  Helen,  who 
hadn't  the  experience  to  know  what  she  was  talking 
about  anyway,  and  was  as  likely  as  not  to  judge  a 
man  for  the  cut  of  his  hair. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  207 

Thereupon  they  abandoned  the  sight  of  the  siren 
coast  to  such  as  might  have  free  minds  for  looking 
at  it,  and  went  off  to  pack — all  but  Aunt  Harriet, 
who  sat  in  her  dream  by  the  railing  and  watched  the 
fishermen,  vaguely  like  Peter  and  Paul  in  the  Bible 
picture,  hauling  their  nets.  Once  a  splendid  figure 
ran  up  the  steps  to  the  Cappuccini,  and  she  drew 
back  with  a  flood  of  certainty  that  this  was  he  and 
he  mustn't  see  her.  And  then  her  saner  mind  assured 
her  that  it  was  not  he,  and  that  if  it  were,  this  all- 
revealing  daylight  would  hide  her,  in  her  middle- 
aged  honesty,  from  him  who  had  found  her  under 
the  spell  of  night;  and  she  leaned  forward  again  and 
saw  he  was  a  man  as  old  as  herself  and  not  Young 
Love  at  all. 

That  night  they  were  at  Ravello,  established  at  the 
very  top,  all  rather  light-headed  with  the  sudden 
lift  from  sea  level,  but  Gregory  and  his  wife  keeping 
their  minds  strictly  upon  the  business  of  standing 
by  Ferdie. 

"Guess  we'd  better  take  her  along  with  us,"  he 
had  said,  as  they  were  brushing  their  teeth  with  a 
rhythmic  unanimity  at  neighboring  stands,  while 
the  moon  of  Italy  silently  bade  them  take  heed  of 
the  heart  which  alone  shall  rule. 

"Mm,"  said  Mrs.  Benedict.  "I  never  realized 
how  much  attached  I  was  to  Preble;  but  if  Ferdie 
wants  to  get  rid  of  him,  you  can  depend  upon  it 
there's  a  reason  for  it." 

And  it  was  on  the  first  day  at  Ravello  that  Ferdie 
and  Preble  were  upon  them,  she  almost  running  to 


208  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

the  summer-house  at  the  end  of  the  terrace  to  find 
them,  and  he  stalking  gauntly  in  her  wake.  As  he 
approached  them  and  they  escaped  from  the  pretty 
assault  of  Ferdie's  caresses  to  greet  him  for  this  one 
of  the  last  times  when  they  meant  to  accept  him  at 
all,  they  saw,  as  with  a  common  vision,  how  he  had 
changed.  Preble  strikingly  resembled  the  younger 
pictures  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  had  the  same 
large-featured  benevolence  of  gaze,  and  he  had  also 
one  characteristic  of  the  later  Lincoln  portraits: 
that  look  of  most  pathetic  weariness.  His  face  did 
not  lighten  in  the  least  in  greeting  them,  though  he 
had,  as  Mrs.  Benedict  thought  rather  indignantly  at 
noting  his  flaccidness,  only  the  pleasantest  recollec 
tions  of  them.  And  having  shaken  hands  in  a  bony, 
perfunctory  fashion,  he  turned  about  and  left  them, 
with  a  remark  about  seeing  to  the  luggage.  But 
Ferdie  was  with  them,  and  they  exclaimed  over  the 
wonder  of  her.  Ferdie  had  changed.  She  was  the 
plain  one  of  the  family,  small  without  slenderness, 
and  with  no  one  feature  to  be  thankful  for.  But, 
since  they  had  seen  her,  Ferdie  had  attained  dis 
tinction.  She  had  in  her  hand  that  marvellous  and 
priceless  gift  to  earth's  daughters  who  mean  to 
inherit:  she  believed  in  herself.  A  number  of  artists 
had  gone  to  the  support  of  her  in  this  arduous 
adventure.  Ferdie  had  rather  thin  hair  of  no 
particular  distinction,  but  it  had  been  waved  and 
twisted  and  turned  until  her  small  head  was  a  marvel 
of  modish  prettiness.  She  had  no  better  features 
than  are  needed  for  conducting  the  acts  of  seeing, 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  209 

smelling,  and  their  sister  offices  in  a  wholesome  man 
ner;  but  the  slight  expression  of  arrogance  she  had 
attained  seemed  to  bring  them  into  a  harmonious 
agreement.  Her  clothes  were  just  such  as  Aunt 
Harriet  and  Helen,  on  the  way  through  Europe,  had 
found  in  Regent  Street  windows,  and  despairingly 
regarded.  And  now  this  apotheosis  of  the  old 
Ferdie  who  had  worn  flannel  shirtwaists  at  home  and 
even  made  a  rhubarb  pie  with  lattice  work  on  top, 
for  Preble's  degustation,  produced  a  vanity  box, 
took  a  serious  look  at  the  state  of  her  countenance, 
and  here,  in  open  conclave,  rubbed  a  powder  paper 
over  her  nose.  But  she  didn't  omit  speaking  while 
these  rites  were  being  accomplished. 

"He  hasn't  gone  to  look  after  the  luggage.  We 
left  it  in  our  rooms.  I  told  him  I  was  going  to  begin 
upon  you  the  minute  I  saw  you.  He  hates  talk  more 
than  ever.  He  says  he  wishes  he  was  deaf  and 
dumb." 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Benedict,  "that's  a  good  deal 
for  Preble  to  say." 

"I  suppose  he  is  tired  of  it,"  said  Ferdie,  with  a 
bright  alertness,  pulling  her  veil  down  over  her  face 
and  settling  it  with  some  of  those  mysterious  mouth 
contortions  women  adopt  toward  veils.  "You  see, 
I've  had  to  talk  so  much.  I've  had  to  do  a  lot  of 
it  at  night,  because  we've  been  sight-seeing  by  day, 
and  of  course  he's  tired.  I  am,  I'm  sure,  tired  as  a 
dog." 

But  her  air  of  gay  equipment,  of  being  equal  to 
any  situation,  gave  her  the  lie.  A  creature  so  ready 


210  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

for  life,  it  said,  so  familiar  with  its  outermost  suprem 
acies,  could  hardly  yield  to  so  crude  a  thing  as  physi 
cal  weariness.  She  challenged  them  all  round, 
admiring  face  after  admiring  face. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "you  got  my  letter.  I  told  you 
what  I  meant  to  do." 

Her  mother  bowed  in  a  solemn  manner,  as  if  she 
felt  a  crown  being  fitted  to  her  head;  but  Gregory 
Benedict  asserted,  from  a  ponderous  sobriety: 

"We  stand  by  you,  Ferdie.  I'd  have  sworn  by 
Preb  as  I  would  by  myself.  But  it's  no  use  going 
over  that  now.  I'm  for  having  the  fellow  drop  off 
right  here  and  our  staying  on  a  spell.  Then  we'll 
put  for  home." 

"Oh,  but  you  see,"  said  Ferdie,  with  the  same  air 
of  holding  the  interview  in  her  hands  and  tossing  it 
about  as  suited  the  game,  "I  don't  want  to  put  for 
home.  I  want  to  stay  over  here." 

"Why,  Ferdie,"  said  her  mother,  and  in  spite  of 
careful  habit  she  lapsed  into  a  phrasing  of  her  less- 
cultured  yesterdays,  "you  don't  want  to  stay  any 
longer  than  father  wants  you  should." 

Ferdie's  eyes  were  shining.  What  with  her  new 
accoutrements  and  her  triumph,  she  looked  actually 
pretty. 

"The  fact  is,"  she  said,  "I've  written  a  story." 

"Short  story?"  Helen  came  pelting  in.  Her 
eyes,  too,  were  shining.  She  had  never  imagined 
such  doings  in  the  house  of  Benedict.  They  might 
even,  some  time,  by  infection,  get  to  her. 

"Yes,"  said  Ferdie.     "And  the  Torch  Bearer  has 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

taken  it  and  asked  for  another.  So  you  see  I've 
simply  got  to  give  myself  to  my  work." 

"You  don't  feel  as  if  you  could  do  it  after  you  got 
home?"  her  mother  suggested. 

"It  isn't  that  I  can't  write  after  I  get  home,"  said 
Ferdie,  with  a  perfect  air  of  exploiting  everything 
time  and  travel  could  do  for  her.  "It's  simply  that 
I've  got  to  live  over  here  and  be — be  different." 

Here  she  stumbled  from  her  height  of  perfect 
poise;  but  they  all  understood  her  better  so. 

"What  does  Preb  say?"  her  father  inquired,  as 
if  he  couldn't  yet  visualize  the  rock  of  shipwreck 
and  wanted  the  testimony  of  a  man  who  had  really 
struck  on  it. 

"Oh,  he  said  he'd  stand  for  it  as  far  as  he  could," 
said  Ferdie.  "But  I  can't  call  on  him.  He  doesn't 
care  for  one  of  the  things  I  care  for — not  one.  Pic 
tures,  music — imagine  Preb  caring  one  snap." 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Benedict  musingly,  "I  don't 
know  as  I  ever  heard  Preble  express  any  interest  in 
music.  That's  why  I  always  thought  'twas  so  good 
in  him  to  let  you  have  those  lessons  in  town  that 
winter."  Inadvertently  she  was  shifting  to  the  side 
of  the  defence.  "You  know  that  was  the  time  of 
the  strike,  and  we  couldn't  even  keep  one  girl,  and 
Preb  got  up  and  made  your  coffee  so  you  could 
take  the  early  train." 

"Yes,"  said  Ferdie,  with  assurance,  "of  course 
I  had  to  save  my  hands.  I  practised  awfully  hard 
that  winter.  I  may  take  lessons  over  here." 

They  sat  staring  at  her,  Gregory  in  a  fever  of 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

perplexity  because,  as  yet,  he  had  nothing  sufficiently 
tangible  to  go  on,  and  the  three  women  breathless 
with  appreciation  of  Ferdie  as  they  saw  her.  Greg 
ory,  too,  was  duly  influenced  by  her  marvellous 
equipment;  but  he  failed  to  translate  it  into  plumes 
and  cloth.  He  thought  only  how  glad  he  was  to 
see  her,  and  how  much  nicer  even  than  usual  she 
seemed — which,  indeed,  was  the  effect  of  her  bra 
vado  and  her  hat.  But  the  three  women  studied 
her  clothes  with  ravishment.  They  were  not  so 
dull  as  to  fail  to  see  that  here  was  accomplished 
that  simplicity  which  is  the  last  word  of  art.  And 
the  way  she  wore  them!  Ferdie  was  no  prettier 
than  she  was  before,  and  if  the  eye  turned  to  follow 
her  it  was  because  she  was  a  matter  of  line  and 
contour,  of  silk  and  lace,  a  last  cry  of  fashion,  but 
a  shriek  of  audacity,  too.  She  was  not  so  much 
modish  as  grotesque,  but  the  grotesqueness  voiced 
an  assurance  that  bespoke  some  big  pretension  in 
the  background.  Surely  Ferdie  couldn't  look  like 
this,  couldn't  sit  up  like  beauty  enthroned  and 
punctuate  her  talk  with  neat  little  gestures,  if  she 
weren't,  in  some  fashion,  more  important  than  the 
Ferdie  they  had  left.  And  the  clothes  spoke  for 
her.  Every  wave  of  her  hair  stamped  her  right  to 
be  as  she  was.  "Look  at  me,"  they  said.  And 
because  they  said  it  in  such  a  complacent,  manda 
tory  tone,  it  was  evident  that  Ferdie  was  worth 
their  championship. 

Aunt  Harriet  was  the  one  who  seemed  to  be  seeking 
out  the  real  Ferdie  within  her  clothes.     Her  expres- 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  213 

sion  said  she  didn't  care  how  shiny  you  made  your 
hair  with  unguents  pretending  to  be  nature's  own, 
and  she  didn't  care  how  graciously  the  sun  lay  on 
the  crests  of  it,  nor  how  cannily  the  veil  fitted  over 
them.  She  was  used  to  girls,  and  she  could  pluck 
out  the  heart  of  their  mysteries. 

"Ferdie,"  said  she,  in  her  school-ma'am  voice. 

Ferdie  sat  up  a  trifle  straighter,  if  that  might  be, 
and  gave  her  veil  another  little  reconciling  adjust 
ment  with  the  lips. 

"Ferdie,"  said  Aunt  Harriet,  "there's  somebody 
else  in  this.  You've  met  some  man  over  here." 

"Harriet!"  breathed  Mrs.  Benedict,  in  a  pained 
invocation  of  propriety. 

Helen  regarded  the  heaven  about  her  and  felt, 
not  as  if  she  were  inexpressibly  confused,  as  she 
must  have  been  at  Salem  Field,  if  anybody  had 
mentioned  illicit  love,  but  rightly  curious.  A  sail 
was  being  dropped  on  the  blue  water  below.  It 
seemed  like  a  fairy  sail  on  a  fairy  boat,  or  at  least 
a  sail  woven  from  the  unreality  of  the  stage.  It 
couldn't  have  done  so  insignificant  a  thing  as  to 
bring  a  fisherman,  or  if  it  had,  he  would  break  into 
an  aria  and  his  entire  purpose  would  have  to  do, 
not  with  fish,  but  with  emotions  that  are  eternally 
beautiful  and  so  eternally  right.  But  all  this  Helen 
did  not  think,  in  any  explicit  way,  being  a  simple 
maiden  with  no  imaginative  equipment;  she  merely 
had  a  sense  of  ineffable  acquiescence  in  whatever  this 
ecstatic  scene  brought  about,  and  she  was  not  in  the 
least  shocked  to  hear  Ferdie  accused  of  erring  love. 


214  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

Gregory  Benedict,  who  was  not  troubling  himself 
acutely  about  Italian  scenery,  was  the  only  one  who, 
in  the  face  of  it,  could  keep  his  head.  He  looked  at 
Aunt  Harriet  after  her  projectile  had  been  launched, 
and  ejaculated: 

"What  the  devil,  Hat!" 

This  last  he  had  not  called  her  since  she  had 
begun  to  teach,  but  Aunt  Harriet  was  not  moved 
by  its  curtness.  There  were  some  things,  she  con 
cluded,  that  brother  didn't  know.  No  Italian  officer 
had  ever  laid  an  arm  about  his  waist.  But  Ferdie, 
unabashed,  was  looking  straight  at  Aunt  Harriet, 
glance  for  glance. 

"I  don't  wonder  you  ask,"  she  said.  "Of  course 
it's  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  But  there's 
nothing  in  it.  I'm  not  leaving  Preble  for  another 
man.  I'm  simply  leaving  him  because  we're  not 
congenial.  I'm  very  fond  of  Preb." 

Gregory  was  frowning  a  little  now,  but  with 
perplexity. 

"We've  got  to  go  into  this  matter  of  Preb,"  he 
began.  "Shouldn't  you  rather  I'd  see  him  by  him 
self  and  get  it  out  of  him?" 

"Get  what  out  of  him?"  asked  Ferdie. 

She  had  the  air  of  wondering  whether  there  were 
any  more  to  be  got  out  of  him  than  she  had  got  al 
ready,  and  if  that  were  so  of  being  ready  to  make  a 
new  essay. 

"Why,  whatever  there  is,"  said  Gregory  testily. 
He  hated  to  be  made  to  speak  before  Helen.  "  What 
you  accuse  him  of." 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  215 

Ferdie  gave  a  little  laugh,  as  nicely  calculated  as 
her  clothes.  "Why,  bless  you,"  said  she,  "I  don't 
accuse  Preble  of  anything.  He's  a  dear  old  boy. 
I  just  want  to  leave  him,  that's  all." 

Gregory  sat  staring  at  her,  again  with  that  effect 
of  straining  eyes.  Then  he  shook  his  head. 

"You're  shielding  him,"  he  told  her.  "It's  very 
creditable  to  you,  Ferdie.  But  you  just  answer  me 
a  question  or  two.  Before  we  started,  Preble  cabled 
me  to  sell  out  some  stock  of  his  and  send  him  the 
money.  You  didn't  have  a  very  big  letter  of  credit, 
you  two,  but  'twas  all  you  could  afford.  Now  what'd 
Preble  get  into  over  here  that  made  him  cable  for 
more?" 

"Oh,  that  was  all  right,"  said  Ferdie,  with  a  care 
lessness  not  at  all  elaborated.  "We  simply  had  to 
have  it.  You  have  to,  you  know." 

"But  you  hadn't  been  over  here  six  weeks," 
Gregory  pursued.  "You  couldn't  have  spent  your 
letter  of  credit  if  you  travelled  as  you'd  ought  to,  as 
we're  travelling,  for  instance." 

"Well!"  said  Ferdie.  Her  eyebrows  went  up, 
and  she  glanced  about  at  the  other  women  with  an 
affectionate  acceptance  of  them  as  they  were,  but 
still  from  a  perfect  comprehension  of  how  droll  they 
looked.  "Mother  and  Helen  haven't  had  any 
clothes — not  a  thing." 

"We  planned  it  that  way,  you  know,  dear,"  said 
Mrs.  Benedict.  "It's  saved  us  time  for  our  sight 
seeing;  and,  besides,  there  won't  be  any  complica 
tions  with  the  custom-house." 


216  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

"Well,  I  sha'n't  be  complicated  with  the  custom 
house,"  said  Ferdie.  "I'm  not  going  back.  I've 
spent  under  eighteen  hundred  dollars,  and  I  think 
I've  really  done  pretty  well." 

"You've  spent  eighteen  hundred  dollars  in 
clothes?"  said  Gregory.  He  grasped  the  railing  be 
side  him  as  if  he  felt  an  impulse  to  jump  down  the 
declivity. 

"Why,  that  isn't  much,  father,"  said  Ferdie. 
"If  you  could  see  the  things  they  showed  me!" 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  Preb  footed  that  bill 
without  a  murmur,  and  simply  cabled  home  for 
more?"  pursued  her  father,  still  with  his  desperate 
clutch  on  the  rail. 

"Why,  he  had  to,"  said  Ferdie  patiently.  "I 
had  to  have  the  clothes,  and  they  certainly  had  to 
be  paid  for.  You  wouldn't  have  had  me  go  about 
in  a  shirt-waist  made  in  Salem  Field,  would  you?" 

Helen  looked  down  at  her  own  silk  waist  not  so 
much  in  dissatisfaction  as  a  surprised  certainty  of 
perhaps  never  having  met  it  socially  before.  Mrs. 
Benedict  was  speaking  timidly  but  with  a  certain 
coldness: 

"I  don't  wonder  your  father's  surprised  at  the 
price  of  things,  my  dear;  but  I  can't  help  thinking  if 
you  find  Preble  so  hard  to  live  with,  it's  on  account 
of  other  things  you  don't  want  to  speak  about. 
Helen,  I  wish  you'd  get  my  blue  shawl  out  of  the 
top  of  my  trunk.  Here's  the  key.  Now,  Ferdie, 
you  tell.  I've  been  trying  to  think  over  cases 
where  there  was  dissatisfaction.  There's  Romola. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  217 

But  Tito  was  very  different  from  Preble.  And 
there  was  Rosamond  Vincy.  But  'twas  her  con 
duct  more  than  his.  I  don't  seem  to  remember  in 
Thackeray—" 

"O  mother,"  said  Ferdie,  "that's  all  reading  club. 
This  is  entirely  different.  I  just  tell  you  I  want 
father  to  give  me  some  money,  so  I  can  stay  over 
here  and  let  Preble  go  home.  It's  as  simple  as 
a  b  c." 

But  Mrs.  Benedict  went  back  to  her  precedents. 

"I  don't  see  what  we  could  do  better,  dear,  than 
take  the  best  books  we  know,"  said  she.  "And 
George  Eliot  has  always  been  praised  for  her  lifelike 
characters." 

"There!  there,  mother!"  said  Gregory.  "Ferdie, 
as  near  as  I  can  make  out,  you've  no  case  against 
Preble.  You  simply  want  to  shake  him." 

Mrs.  Benedict  gave  a  murmur;  but  Ferdie,  to 
whom  slang  was  not  tabu,  assented  cordially. 

"You  want  to  stay  over  here  and  study  music 
and  write  stories  and  spend  eighteen  hundred  dollars 
in  clothes  whenever  you  feel  inclined." 

"I  shouldn't  have  to  spend  anything  for  a  long 
time,"  Ferdie  corrected  him.  "I  got  a  very  good 
outfit — 'in  case." 

"It's  lunch  time,"  said  Aunt  Harriet,  dropping 
her  eye-glass  on  the  little  hook  attached  to  her  silk 
waist.  "You'd  better  go  in  and  take  your  hat  off, 
Ferdie." 

"I  sha'n't  need  to  take  off  my  hat,"  said  Ferdie. 
"But  I'll  wake  Preb." 


218  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

Preble  appeared  with  her  at  luncheon,  gaunt  and 
taciturn.  Benedict  made  some  gruff  confidences 
to  him  on  the  news  from  the  factory;  but  there  was 
an  air  of  uneasiness  over  them,  all  except  Ferdie. 
The  veil  of  silence  didn't  seem  to  touch  her  at  all, 
or  if  it  did  she  had  been  able  to  lift  a  corner  of  it 
and  peer  out  with  an  almost  pert  self-sufficiency. 
There  were  other  people  at  the  table,  a  party  motor 
ing  through  and  carrying  the  very  air  of  worldly 
equipment  that  Ferdie  had  been  mysteriously  able 
to  filch.  They  talked  to  Ferdie  as  of  their  own  kind, 
and  she  answered  them  with  a  sophistication  that 
left  even  Aunt  Harriet  gasping.  She  told  them  the 
Vandewaters  were  at  Spa  and  Aunt  Clara's  rheuma 
tism  was  much  improved;  and  when  Helen,  in  an 
unquenchable  curiosity,  asked  her  afterward  how 
she  knew  the  Vandewaters,  she  said  she  had  seen 
them  at  the  hotel  at  Spa  and  the  old  lady  had  talked 
with  her  about  her  rheumatism. 

"Well!"  said  Helen,  "I  thought,  from  the  way 
you  spoke,  you  really  knew  the  Vandewaters." 

"Well,"  said  Ferdie,  "of  course  you  have  to  talk 
to  people  about  what  they  know.  You'll  have  to 
pin  that  waist  down,  Nell." 

But  it  was  not  only  Aunt  Clara  Vandewater's 
rheumatism  of  which  she  had  cognizance.  She 
knew  what  was  being  played  in  Paris,  and  even  the 
mysterious  names  at  the  Comedie.  She  had  a  little 
gossip  about  what  Bernhardt — whose  name  she 
pronounced  in  a  way  to  veil  its  identity  from  the 
denizens  of  Salem  Field — had  said  to  Mrs.  Kendall. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO  219 

"How  in  blazes  does  she  manage  it?"  Aunt  Har 
riet  found  herself  saying  to  Helen  that  night  when 
they  were  braiding  their  hair  in  the  moonlight  of 
Ravello. 

"Why,  Aunt  Harriet,  you  said  *  blazes!'"  Helen 
switched  off  the  topic  to  exclaim. 

"Did  I?"  said  Aunt  Harriet  dreamily.  "Well, 
it's  a  word  I  never  used  before.  I  dare  say  I  sha'n't 
again." 

But  she  didn't  mention  that  just  now  it  didn't 
seem  necessary  to  cavil  at  words;  she  had  no  prej 
udice,  so  they  were  telling  enough.  What  were 
they?  Symbols.  And  this  was  Life.  But  she 
thought,  as  she  lay  awake  in  the  moon-rays  that 
seemed  to  her  the  true  effulgence  of  Diana's  axles, 
that  it  wasn't  so  difficult  to  understand  how  Ferdie 
had  managed  it.  Ferdie  was  studying  the  world 
now  as  if  it  were  a  guide-book  to  sophistication. 
With  a  mind  quickened  under  this  sun  and  moon, 
she  was  snatching  at  every  straw  to  build  her  nest 
of  knowingness. 

The  next  day  they  found  Ferdie  had  been  up  early 
and  gone  to  walk  by  herself.  She  came,  vivacious 
and  breathless,  to  breakfast,  drawing  off  long  gloves. 

"I  left  Preb  asleep,"  she  explained.  "He  didn't 
get  any  sleep  the  first  part  of  the  night.  We  talked. 
But  I  wasn't  going  to  miss  this  morning  air.  Don't 
you  know  that  essay,  'The  dewy  chrism  of  the  day'? 
I  wasn't  going  to  lose  that." 

"You  might  have  waked  me,"  said  Helen,  much 
aggrieved,  "and  let  me  have  it,  too." 


220  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

To  this  Ferdie  didn't  reply.  She  was  sweetly 
good-natured  to  Preble,  to  the  waiters,  to  the  family. 
She  had  found  that  out,  too:  that  the  mantle  of  the 
socially  equipped  is  an  impregnable  composure  and 
ability  to  make  things  go.  The  family  didn't  know 
how  to  take  her.  She  was  excellent  company,  if 
you  were  willing  to  strain  up  to  her  height  of  cog 
nizance;  but  she  made  them  a  little  afraid.  Helen, 
who  regarded  her  from  the  bog  of  a  sisterhood  which 
had  had  no  such  social  boost  and  where  shirt-waists 
needed  perennially  pulling  down,  yielded  to  a  mali 
cious  desire  to  hear  what  Preble  thought  of  her,  he 
who  had  been  by  while  the  statue  was  in  process  of 
moulding.  She  hadn't  been  sprung  upon  him  as 
she  had  on  them,  full-armed  from  the  head  of  Jove. 

But  Ferdie  was  not  hiding  her  nest.  She  left 
them  in  no  doubt  of  an  intention  to  settle  her  future 
without  delay. 

"Let's  go  out  to  that  lovely  seat,"  she  said,  in 
cluding  them  all.  "Then  we  can  talk  things  over. 
Come  along,  Preb." 

Gregory  had  wanted  a  word  with  Preble  by  him 
self;  but  that  was  not  to  be  accorded  him,  and  he 
lighted  his  cigar  frowningly  and  paced  along  in  the 
rear.  Ferdie  was  vivacity  itself.  No  wonder,  Helen 
thought,  still  aggrieved,  when  she  was  the  one  for 
whom  the  banners  were  going  to  fly  and  the  shouting 
to  be  raised.  She  was  the  center  of  the  picture. 
She  looked  as  if  she  always  meant  to  be.  Some  of 
us  were  going  home  to  wear  flannel  waists  again,  and, 
in  the  discouragement  of  our  state,  perhaps  insuf- 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

ficiently  to  pin  them  down.  No  woman  of  the  three 
had  forgiven  Ferdie  her  clothes.  They  were  in  no 
condition  to  forgive  from  the  slough  of  antithetical 
abasement  where  they  found  themselves. 

"Well,"  said  Ferdie.  She  lighted  Treble's  cigar 
for  him  very  prettily,  took  a  little  silver  case  from 
her  bag,  and  was  about  to  open  it,  but  seemed  to 
think  better  of  it  and  returned  it  to  the  bag.  But 
Aunt  Harriet  knew  what  was  in  the  case.  She  had 
once  dealt  with  a  pupil  detected  in  smoking  ciga 
rettes,  a  circumstance  that  looked  now  as  remote  as 
"battles  long  ago."  It  seemed  at  this  moment  a 
matter  of  indifference  whether  Ferdie  smoked  or 
whether  she  didn't.  Only  it  would  be  a  pity  to 
shock  Ferdie's  mother,  which  was,  she  supposed, 
why  Ferdie  had  wisely  abandoned  the  indulgence. 
But  Ferdie  was  speaking. 

"It's  no  use  going  over  it  all  again.  Preble  and 
I  just  agree  to  separate,  that's  all.  And  of  course  I 
want  you  to  know  it,  so  it  will  be  perfectly  above- 
board  and  easy.  And  I  want  to  stay  over  here,  and 
of  course  dad'll  make  it  easy  for  me.  I  don't  need 
to  ask  you  that,  do  I,  dad?" 

She  had  never  called  him  dad  before,  and  Gregory 
didn't  object  to  an  innovation  in  the  way  of  names; 
but  he  failed  to  reply  with  the  efficacy  she  had  looked 
for.  Indeed,  he  didn't  reply  at  all.  He  had  caught 
a  glimpse  of  Treble's  face,  not  only  the  face,  but  the 
man  back  of  the  man's  mere  appearance,  and,  un 
imaginative  though  he  was,  it  shocked  him.  It  was 
really  the  shock  he  might  have  had  if  he  had  seen 


222  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

Preble  drop  dead.  He  drew  his  breath  sharply 
between  his  teeth,  and  Helen,  who  was  "father's 
girl,"  and  always  guessing  him  out  under  his  silences, 
said  quickly,  "What  is  it?" 

But  Gregory  had  hold  of  himself  now,  though  he 
still  avoided  looking  at  Preble.  Having  once  seen 
the  bleeding  body  of  a  man's  happiness,  he  found  it 
too  terrible  ever  to  encounter  again.  Gregory  had 
seldom  realized  anything  with  the  vividness  of  this 
sight  of  Preble's  misery.  The  pageant  of  life,  in  its 
uneven  values,  was  displayed  before  him.  Ferdie, 
he  saw,  had  darted  ahead.  She  was  at  the  first  of 
the  series  of  worldly  goals.  Old  Preble  lounged 
about  the  starting-post,  and  here  she  was,  breath 
less  but  triumphant.  She  had  learned  to  play  the 
game  more  deftly  than  he.  Poor  old  Preble!  he 
never  would  play  just  this  game.  Gregory  felt  as 
if  he  himself  were  judge  and  jury  in  one.  His 
predilections  were  swinging  round  to  the  defendant. 
If  the  judge  side  of  him  had  to  charge  the  jury  side 
just  at  this  moment,  he  felt  that,  in  reviewing  the 
evidence,  he  should  have  to  lay  stress  on  everything 
Preble  had  done  to  help  Ferdie  out  in  her  clutchings 
at  a  more  rarefied  life,  while  they  were  at  Salem 
Field,  and  what  he  was  ready  to  do  now.  He  heard 
a  rustle  of  mother's  dress  as  she  rose  and  reseated 
herself,  and  the  thought  came  over  him,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  a  shudder  and  an  actual  crawling 
of  the  flesh,  "Suppose  mother  had  proposed  leaving 
him,  'way  back  when  they  were  both  as  young  as 
Preble  and  Ferdie,  just  because  she  had  been  hungry 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

for  more  life  than  he  could  give  her,  more  silks,  more 
rustling  things  and  excitements  and  talk  about 
Vande waters?"  His  house  of  life,  a  solid  structure 
with  a  tower  and  a  mansard  roof,  seemed  to  be 
toppling  down  about  him  as  he  thought  it.  He  felt 
like  giving  Preble  a  hand,  and  saying,  "Hang  on  to 
me,  old  man.  I'll  see  you  through."  And  what 
was  this  Harriet  was  saying? 

"You'd  better  consider  that  this  is  Italy.  You 
won't  feel  the  same  when  you  get  home." 

Ferdie  took  out  her  vanity  box  and  powdered  her 
nose.  She  appeared  to  find  some  moral  support  in 
the  act. 

"Nobody  feels  the  same  in  Italy,"  Harriet  was 
boldly  asserting.  "I  don't  know  how  it  would  be  if 
we  stayed  longer.  But  the  first  taste  of  it's  like 
getting  drunk." 

"Harriet!"  breathed  Mrs.  Benedict.  Then  she 
drew  her  lips  in  primly.  "I  can  only  say,"  she 
announced,  in  the  manner  of  one  to  whom  the  task 
has  fallen  of  leading  the  last  hope,  "that  I  have  felt 
no  temptation  to  become  intoxicated.  Nor  has 
Helen.  Nor  have  I  seen  any  indication  of  it  in  my 
husband." 

She  seemed  intentionally  to  leave  out  Aunt  Har 
riet:  a  kind  of  purgatory  by  exclusion. 

Aunt  Harriet  was  not  to  be  halted. 

"I've  had  serious  thoughts  myself,"  she  said,  "of 
drawing  out  my  savings  and  staying  here  till  they're 
gone.  When  you're  here  it  seems  the  only  thing  to 
do.  But  everybody  can't  live  in  Italy.  Somebody's 


324  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

got  to  stay  in  Salem  Field,  or  the  world  won't  bal 


ance." 


It  became  evident  that  Aunt  Harriet  was  the 
counsel  for  the  defence.  Preble  turned  a  dull  eye 
upon  her.  She  seemed  to  be  advising  Ferdie  to  stay 
with  him,  and  so  she  must  be  on  his  side.  But 
Ferdie  was  answering  brightly : 

"Good  for  you,  Aunt  Harriet.  You  stay  over 
here  with  me  and  we'll  take  an  apartment  in 
Rome." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Aunt  Harriet  grimly.  "I'm  going 
back  to  teach  school.  I'm  going  to  take  Italy  in 
my  pocket  and  pull  it  out  and  look  at  it." 

"There!  there!"  said  Gregory.  "Don't  get  off  the 
key,  Harriet.  We've  got  to  talk  this  thing  out." 

"So,"  said  Aunt  Harriet  to  Ferdie,  quite  unmoved 
by  any  side  issue  of  interruption,  "I  feel  as  if  you'd 
make  a  mistake  if  you  give  up  Preble  for  anything 
so  far  away  from  what  you've  been  born  to  as — as 
this."  She  threw  a  comprehensive  wave  of  the 
hand  at  the  heaven  of  slope  and  sea  below  them. 
"You  must  remember,  if  it  doesn't  turn  out  as  you 
think  and  you  get  rid  of  Preble  and  Preble  gets  rid 
of  you" — here  both  Ferdie  and  Preble  gave  a  little 
passionate  murmur,  which  might  mean  one  thing  or 
another — "after  you've  once  got  a  divorce,  you 
can't  go  back  on  it." 

"My  stars,  Aunt  Harriet,  I  didn't  say  a  divorce!" 
cried  Ferdie.  Her  whole  face  was  flaming,  and  she 
thrust  the  vanity  box  into  her  little  bag  as  if  she  had 
to  thrust  at  something.  "I  said  a  separation." 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

Preble  threw  his  cigar  over  the  parapet,  got  up 
and  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  stared  at  the 
sky. 

"Why,  of  course  you  won't  do  such  a  contemptible 
thing  as  to  separate  from  Preble,"  said  Aunt  Harriet, 
with  the  severity  of  the  teacher  who  sets  a  disciplin 
ary  task  of  irregular  verbs.  "Send  him  back  to 
Salem  Field  to  fight  it  out  alone?  You've  got  to 
let  him  get  a  divorce,  and  not  raise  a  finger,  so  he 
can  marry  again  and  make  himself  a  home  while 
he's  young  enough  to  enjoy  it." 

The  Benedict  family  sat  staring  at  Aunt  Harriet 
as  if  she  were  its  uncomprehended  sibyl.  Preble 
stared  at  the  sky.  What  he  thought  no  one  could 
tell  from  his  back.  He  seemed  to  be  turning  it  on 
the  entire  Benedict  family.  There  was  no  doubt 
that  Aunt  Harriet,  by  force  of  audacity,  it  might  be, 
had  made  a  hit.  Gregory  was  the  head  of  the  family, 
assuredly  the  judge,  but  Aunt  Harriet  was  taking  the 
argument  out  of  his  hands.  It  was  she  who  was 
charging  the  jury. 

"Oh,  come,  Harriet,"  said  he,  "you  don't  know 
what  you're  talking  about."  But  he  said  it  weakly. 

"As  to  your  writing,"  said  Aunt  Harriet  inexorably, 
addressing  herself  to  Ferdie,  "if  you've  got  it  in  you, 
you  can  write  about  Salem  Field." 

"I  don't  want  to  write  about  Salem  Field,"  said 
Ferdie.  "Do  you  suppose  I  mean  to  tag  on  behind, 
writing  dialect  stories,  like — "  She  paused  rather 
scornfully,  and  then  two  angry  tears  came  into  her 
eyes.  "I'm  not  so  awfully  young,"  said  Ferdie. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

"I  may  look  it,  and  I  intend  to  look  it.  You  can  do 
almost  anything  with  yourself  now,  if  you  keep  up 
with  things.  And  I  want  to  live  as  other  people  do." 

"What  people?"  asked  Aunt  Harriet,  and  the 
Benedict  consciousness  trembled  because  a  fibre  of 
it  was  being  wrenched  to  the  bar. 

"Like  everybody  that  lives  at  all,"  said  Ferdie. 
"You  don't  know  the  kind  of  novels  I  want  to  do. 
I  want  to  do  them  like  Marion  Crawford  and  Henry 
James — and  others.  Father  and  Preble  haven't 
even  heard  of  'em." 

"Look  here,  Ferdie,"  said  Aunt  Harriet.  She 
rose  and  stretched  out  her  hands  toward  the  sky 
with  an  unconscious  magnificence.  For  a  moment 
she  held  them  so,  and  then,  with  an  equal  majesty, 
let  them  relax  and  fall.  "I've  taught  literature,  and 
I  can  tell  you  you  couldn't  do  the  kind  of  thing  you 
want  to  if  you  should  live  here  for  the  next  twenty 
years.  Some  women  could.  You  can't.  You're 
not  that  kind.  But—" 

They  were  all  -watching  her,  really  hanging  on  her 
words.  She  seemed  to  hold  the  entire  Benedict 
family  in  her  grasp. 

"I  tell  you  what,"  said  Aunt  Harriet.  She  forgot 
the  Benedicts.  She  remembered  Young  Love  and 
Naples.  "If  I  could  be  putting  out  to  sea  down 
there  with  somebody  I  liked,  I'd  rather  do  it  than 
teach  English  literature  or  write  like  Henry  James. 
And  you  can  go  down  there  and  take  a  boat.  You 
can  go  with  Preble.  Preble  just  worships  the  ground 
you  tread  on.  You  do  all  the  writing  you  want  to. 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

But  don't  you  think  you've  got  to  have  the  scene 
set  for  it,  and  you've  got  to  live  in  Italy,  and  you've 
got  to  throw  over  your  folks — because  you're  not 
a  big  enough  woman,  Ferdie,  to  go  walking  over 
things  like  that." 

Ferdie  surprised  them.     She  began  to  sob. 

"You  don't  know,  Aunt  Harriet,"  said  she.  "  You 
don't  know  how  big  I  can  be." 

"I  don't  care,"  said  Aunt  Harriet,  "how  big  you 
are  if  you're  throwing  over  a  man  you've  made  your 
home  with  when  you  haven't  got  a  shadow  of  com 
plaint  against  him." 

"Treble's  been  a  good  husband  to  you,"  said 
Gregory,  to  his  own  amaze.  He  had  no  idea  that 
his  attitude  had  shifted  or  that  he  wasn't  standing 
by  Ferdie.  "I  don't  say  I  won't  do  anything  in 
reason  in  the  way  of  money.  I  never 've  stinted 
you  girls  and  I  never  shall.  But  when  it  comes  to 
your  saying  Preble  ain't  up  to  the  scratch,  and  that 
sort  of  thing,  I  don't  stand  for  it,  Ferdie." 

"I  do  feel,"  murmured  Mrs.  Benedict,  "that 
Treble's  done  everything  in  the  world  for  you  a 
husband  could." 

"Seems  to  me,"  said  Helen — no  one  expected  her 
to  speak,  but  she  dashed  in  with  the  alertness  of  a 
sisterly  certainty  that  Ferdie  might  need  taking 
down  a  peg — "  seems  to  me,  everything  we've  brought 
out  shows  how  Treble's  got  down  in  the  dust  every 
single  time  and  let  Ferdie  just  walk  over  him." 

Ferdie  looked  from  one  to  another  of  them  in  a 
panic-struck  surprise.  No  Benedict  had  ever,  in 


228  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

her  experience,  turned  against  another  Benedict. 
At  that  instant  Preble  threw  himself  round  and  faced 
them.  Gregory,  in  one  brief  look  at  him,  saw  how 
crumpled  his  face  was,  and  how  savage  a  misery 
dwelt  in  the  eyes,  and  had  to  look  away  again.  He 
had  never  seen  a  man  cry. 

"Now,"  said  Preble,  "I'll  speak.  Ferdie's  going 
to  have  whatever  she  wants,  and  she's  going  to  take 
it  from  me,  and  when  I  can't  give  it  to  her  I'll  say 
I  ain't  man  enough  to  live  and  put  a  bullet  through 
my  head.  If  she's  going  to  stay  over  here,  I  can 
sell  the  home  place  and  board.  I  don't  want  any 
place  without  Ferdie.  It's  going  to  be  enough  for 
me  to  know  she's  living  the  way  she  wants  to  live. 
You  don't  any  of  you  understand  Ferdie." 

Like  Aunt  Harriet,  he  looked  big  against  the  sky, 
a  colossal  figure  made  for  protection,  on  which  the 
lesser  waves  of  life  could  dash  leaving  him  unscarred 
— a  little  worn,  perhaps,  after  a  good  deal  of  it,  but 
never  overthrown.  The  group  before  him  dissolved, 
broke  up,  and  shifted.  Helen  frankly  put  her 
handkerchief  to  her  face  and  cried.  Gregory  blew 
his  nose  violently,  and  his  wife  murmured,  "There!" 
Aunt  Harriet  stood  at  the  rim  of  the  world  made  by 
the  edge  of  the  terrace,  another  heroic  figure  that 
might,  with  Preble,  know  the  meaning  of  life  through 
nearness  to  the  larger  calls  of  earth. 

But  Ferdie  had  run  to  Preble  like  a  child,  and 
stood  by  him  holding  his  big  hand.  It  almost  looked 
as  if  she  were  protecting  him,  perhaps  by  her  silken 
touch  from  the  ache  that  even  giants  may  feel  in 


THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

giant  hearts.  They  turned  together,  he  and  she, 
and  went  off  along  the  terrace,  Ferdie  still  holding 
his  hand  until,  in  a  moment,  Aunt  Harriet  saw  him 
put  his  arm  about  her  waist  and  draw  her  to  him. 
In  a  moment  too,  without  a  conclusive  word,  the 
other  Benedicts  dispersed  to  their  letters  or  their 
guide-books.  All  that  day  they  didn't  have  a 
glimpse  of  Preble  and  Ferdie.  But  at  night  when 
they  made  their  moonlit  way  along  the  terrace, 
Helen,  in  advance,  turned  back  to  them. 

"The  seat's  been  taken,"  said  she.  "They're 
lovers,  making  love."  Italy  and  moonlight  were 
upon  her,  too,  and  it  seemed  as  if  she  couldn't  repeat 
the  word  enough.  "Lovers!" 

Then  some  one  laughed:  a  girl's  laugh,  Ferdie's. 
A  man's  laugh  answered  it:  Preble's. 

"Come  on,"  called  Ferdie.  "Come  on,  Family. 
We've  got  it  all  settled.  We're  going  to  stay  three 
months  more  than  we  intended,  and  then  we're 
going  home  together." 

Then  they  all  sat  down  and  talked  plans,  and 
Preble,  Ferdie's  head  on  his  shoulder,  told  a  story 
he'd  heard  the  day  before  in  a  smoking-room.  It 
was  a  stupid  story,  but  Ferdie  led  the  laughter. 
Mother  Benedict,  from  her  demesne  of  matrimonial 
experience,  realized  that  Ferdie,  from  some  of  those 
mysterious  forces  that  prevail  in  matrimony,  again 
considered  her  husband  "about  right."  Gregory 
gave  himself  up  to  his  cigar  with  an  untainted  satis 
faction,  and  Helen,  the  warmth  of  virginal  youth 
throbbing  at  her  breast,  wondered  what  made  Ferdie 


230  THE  TRIAL  AT  RAVELLO 

get  up  such  a  row  if  she  really  meant  to  stick  to 
Preble  after  all.  But  Aunt  Harriet,  standing  in  the 
moonlight,  the  shower  of  it  on  her  face  and  shoulders 
like  a  silver  rain,  thought  back  to  the  morning  when 
she  had  made  her  plea  for  the  defendant.  The  plea 
had  been  well  directed,  the  verdict  was  benign.  And 
yet,  if  Ferdie  had  left  her  husband  and  gone  forth 
emotionally  unloosed,  Aunt  Harriet  wondered,  with 
a  throb  of  wildest  envy,  what  she  would  have  found 
in  Italy. 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

WHEN  Mrs.  Abergenny  came  down  to  meet  her 
young  friend,  Philippa  Foxcroft,  who  had  been  an 
nounced  perhaps  five  minutes  before,  she  found  Phil 
ippa  standing  near  the  long  window  outlined  by 
two  Doric  pillars  of  the  veranda,  and  shaking  hands 
with  Inga,  the  maid.  Rather  it  seemed  that  she 
was  holding  Inga's  hand  in  affectionate  detention. 
She  dropped  it,  though  not  with  the  haste  of  having 
been  interrupted  in  a  social  eccentricity,  and  turned 
to  give  the  hand,  no  less  cordially  and  no  more,  to 
Mrs.  Abergenny.  Inga,  on  the  contrary,  withered 
slightly  in  the  changed  atmosphere  of  the  room, 
induced  by  the  entrance  of  the  lady  from  whom  she 
received  her  wages  and  the  right  inculcation  of 
conduct. 

"Good-by,  Eva,"  said  Philippa,  touching  the 
initial  vowel  with  a  cosmopolitan  grace.  "Re 
hearsal  to-night  and  to-morrow  noon." 

Then  Inga,  become  temporarily  Eva,  with  a  little 
more  red  in  her  cheeks  than  was  customary,  though 
not  more  than  proved  becoming,  also  with  downcast 
lids,  went  out  in  her  list  slippers,  her  little  card-tray 
at  her  side  like  a  fairy  shield  not  yet  wanted.  Mrs. 
Abergenny  stood  for  a  moment  looking  up  at  Phil 
ippa,  whom  she  found  sometimes,  with  an  inexplica 
ble  irritation,  too  tall,  too  full  of  the  west  wind  of  curt 

281 


232  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

incisive  fact.  Philippa  was  splendid,  Mrs.  Aber 
genny 's  husband  told  her,  an  Amazon.  She  needed 
only  shiny  breastplates  and  a  spear  to  walk  on  the 
stage  and  sing  her  confidence  in  life.  But  she  lacked 
a  good  many  of  the  fringing  softnesses  Mrs.  Aber- 
genny  had  felt  necessities  in  her  own  day.  There 
was  no  atmosphere  about  her — save  perhaps  the 
honest  dawn — no  questioning  reverence  in  the  tent 
of  her  superiors.  Mrs.  Abergenny  knew  that  her 
husband,  who  wrote  novels,  was  Philippa's  superior: 
and  yet  Philippa  seemed  to  have  nothing  to  learn 
of  him.  She  always  spoke  to  him  with  a  gay  un 
consciousness  of  anything  beyond  their  neighborly 
affiliations,  perhaps  as  Parkman's  uncle,  and  with  a 
shade  of  frank  solicitude  when  she  wanted  to  hear 
from  Park.  Sometimes  Mrs.  Abergenny  had  an 
impulse  to  reach  up  and  lay  hold  of  her  strong 
shoulders,  shake  her  into  attention,  and  say : 

"You  tall,  gaunt  girl,  don't  you  know  Robert 
Abergenny  has  written  novels  translated  into 
foreign  tongues  and  praised  in  England?" 

In  the  second  while  they  stood  looking  at  each 
other,  delicate,  plump,  peach-colored  matron  and 
well-equipped  girl,  some  of  these  antagonisms  came 
out,  but  in  a  glance  only  and  this  from  Mrs.  Aber 
genny.  Philippa's  limpid  grayness  of  eye  beamed 
forth  pure  affection,  an  inability  perhaps  to  be 
moved  save  from  abstract  causes. 

"Eva  is  going  to  play  in  the  mystery  play," 
said  she,  when  they  had  seated  themselves. 

"You  call  her  Eva,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny. 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  233 

"Yes,  that's  her  name.  Isn't  her  name  Eva?  " 
"I  believe  I  do  remember  it  was  something  dif 
ferent,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny,  wrinkling  her  brow 
slightly  in  the  effort  of  concentration.  "We  called 
her  Inga  because  that  nice  girl  that  got  married  was 
Inga.  We've  had  three  Ingas  now.  It's  so  much 


easier." 


"Could  she  rehearse  to-morrow  at  noon?"  asked 
Philippa.  "Eva  didn't  like  to  ask.  It's  a  bad  hour, 
but  it's  the  only  one  the  mill-hands  have.  And 
that's  the  last  rehearsal.  Performance  to-morrow 
night,  you  know." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny,  with  dignity. 
"  Cook  will  wait  on  us  at  dinner,  I'm  sure." 

"When's  Park  coming?"  asked  Philippa,  with  a 
plump  directness  staggering  to  Park's  aunt. 

When  Mrs.  Abergenny  had  lived  in  the  shadowy, 
iridescent-vapored  land  of  tentative  engagement  to 
her  husband,  she  couldn't  have  mentioned  his  name 
in  such  evident  fervor  of  interest,  even  if  he  had  been 
away  the  eight  months  Park  had  used  up  in  his  on 
slaughts  on  the  camps  of  city  journalism. 

"Mr.  Abergenny  will  be  home  to-night,"  she  said 
rather  primly.  "He  will  be  likely  to  know  the 
latest." 

"Has  Mr.  Abergenny  been  in  New  York?" 

"Yes,  for  three  days.  He  thinks  it  wise  to  go  on 
once  in  a  while  to  make  the  rounds  of  the  editors. 
I  fancy  it's  partly  to  see  Park.  He  gets  homesick 
for  him." 

Philippa   was   wrinkling   her   brow   now,    unbe- 


234  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

comingly  yet  frankly,  with  a  hard  intensity.  There 
was  nothing  of  the  wistful  pray-do-tell-me-if-you- 
know  about  it  that  makes  a  girl's  pure  brow  so 
charming.  It  said  rather: 

"I'm  thinking.  In  a  few  minutes  I  shall  have 
weighed  the  matter.  Then  I'll  inform  you  ac 
curately." 

"I  want  awfully  to  get  hold  of  Park,"  said  she. 
"You  see,  Mary  Crewe  has  been  collating  her  mill- 
operative  data.  I  want  to  know  what  Park  thinks 
about  it :  whether  he'd  advise  her  to  get  it  into  shape 
for  half  a  dozen  articles  or  more.  If  he  could  just  sit 
down  and  listen  to  her,  it  would  save  a  lot  of  writing 
back  and  forth." 

Were  not  she  and  Park  then  writing  back  'and 
forth,  weaving  the  fabric  of  their  dream,  or  did  they 
wait  for  crucial  topics  like  data  to  spur  them  to 
epistolary  haste? 

"I'm  sure  Park  would  be  delighted  to  do  anything 
he  could,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny,  the  least  stiffness 
of  unsatisfied  inquiry  in  her  tone.  "Is  Miss  Crewe 
a  college  friend?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Philippa.  Waves  of  brightness  were 
flushing  over  her  face.  She  evidently  believed  in  her 
friend  tremendously.  "  She's  visited  me  a  lot." 

"I  don't  think  I  ever  met  her." 

"No.  There  never's  been  any  time  for  calling. 
Besides,  for  the  last  year  she  hasn't  come  here  at  all. 
She's  been  working  in  the  mills." 

"In  the  mills?"  Mrs.  Abergenny  repeated,  with  an 
involuntary  warmth  of  pity .  ' '  Poor  child ! ' ' 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  235 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Philippa,  "not  that  way.  She's 
not  working  for  a  living.  Mary  has  her  own  money 
now.  She  is  simply  going  round  and  hiring  out 
under  assumed  names,  working  in  the  same  condi 
tions  with  other  girls  to  find  out  what  the  conditions 
really  are." 

A  flush  crept  into  Mrs.  Abergenny's  face.  She 
looked  a  dignified  remonstrance. 

"That  certainly  doesn't  seem  to  me,"  she  said, 
"the  thing  for  a  young  lady  to  do.  Pardon  me, 
Philippa.  But  even  if  she  is  your  friend — " 

Philippa  didn't  blame  her.  She  had  a  large, 
kind  way  with  Mrs.  Abergenny.  It  sometimes  mir 
rored,  in  the  older  woman's  mind,  the  toleration  of 
her  orthodox  friends  for  her  defined  Unitarianism. 
They  hardly  recognized  it  as  a  faith,  but  they  re 
garded  it,  she  thought,  as  too  inconsiderable  to  be 
rejected.  But  Philippa  was  speaking  in  a  warm, 
moved  voice,  born  out  of  enthusiasm  over  Mary's 
deeds. 

"Mary's  done  a  lot.  The  eight-hour  bill  in  Hill 
Haven  really  was  due  to  her.  There's  Mr.  Aber 
genny." 

A  town  hack  was  crawling  up  the  driveway,  and 
by  the  time  Mrs.  Abergenny  had  the  door  open,  her 
husband  had  paid  his  quarter  and  picked  up  his 
suit-case  from  the  veranda  where  the  driver  had  de 
posited  it  with  a  friendly  ease,  and  was  smilingly  in 
evidence.  He  was  a  tall,  personable  man  over 
sixty,  looking  out  of  kind  eyes  set  round  with  wrinkles 
and  ambushed  under  well-cut  brows.  He  made  a 


236  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

distinguished  figure,  wearing  the  caped  coat  and  soft 
hat  his  wife  thrust  on  him  as  fitting  her  especial 
taste.  Abergenny  found  them  sufficiently  com 
fortable.  He  would  have  hooted  if  he  had  come  on 
the  childlike  subtlety  of  her  motive,  that  they  made 
him,  as  an  author,  picturesque.  He  kissed  her,  not 
in  a  matrimonial  meagreness,  but  with  a  soft  en 
thusiasm. 

"All  right,  Ellen?"  he  asked. 

Ellen  had  flushed  in  a  perfect  delight.  She  was 
more  than  all  right.  She  was  his  with  a  young  in 
tensity.  Philippa,  also  receptive,  had  come  into  the 
hall,  and  he  shook  hands  with  her.  She  was  ready 
with  the  instant  question: 

"When's  Park  coming?" 

"Why,"  said  Mr.  Abergenny,  in  a  gay  conscious 
ness  of  having  his  answer  pat,  "Park's  coming  to 
night." 

"To-night!" 

Both  women  echoed  it. 

He  nodded. 

"He  wasn't  in  New  York.  I  haven't  see  him. 
He's  been  in  Minneapolis  with  Eaton  Lang.  They're 
putting  on  a  play  of  Lang's." 

"Trying  it  out,"  supplied  Philippa.  "But  com 
ing  here?" 

"On  the  way.  Be  here  a  day  or  two  I  under 
stand.  I'll  tell  him  a  young  lady's  been  inquiring 
for  him." 

Mrs.  Abergenny  threw  him  a  quick,  repressing 
look.  "Don't  chaff,"  it  said.  "Philippa  really 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  237 

shouldn't  have  asked  for  him.  Don't  encourage 
her." 

"Tell  him  to  come  over,"  said  Philippa,  the 
brusqueness  of  it  qualified  by  her  bright  eyes.  "Or, 
no,  you  needn't.  He's  got  precious  little  time. 
Mary  and  I'll  run  over  here." 

She  had  shut  the  front  door  behind  her,  and  Aber- 
genny  had  got  off  his  coat,  before  his  wife  knew  really 
what  comment  it  was  fair  to  make  on  a  girl  they 
liked  as  they  did  Philippa.  But  when  he  had  gone 
into  the  front  room  and  mended  the  fire  and  stretched 
his  legs  to  it,  in  a  frank  relief  at  finding  himself  at 
home,  she  allowed  herself  the  interjection,  "Did  you 
ever!"  That  was  safe.  It  was  so  safe  that  Aber- 
genny  saw  nothing  in  it.  He  took  her  hand,  patted 
it,  kissed  it,  pulled  her  little  chair  nearer,  and  put  her 
into  it.  Then,  the  flush  gone  from  his  face  and  the 
light  of  recognition  from  his  eyes,  he  settled  into  a 
muse  of  his  own,  and  in  that  she  caught  him. 

"Why,  Rob,"  said  she,  " you're  tired."  He  pulled 
himself  back. 

"No,"  said  he,  "I  don't  believe  I'm  tired— very." 

"Did  you  have  a  good  time?" 

"Well  enough." 

"See  all  the  men  you  meant  to?" 

"Yes,  I  guess  so.     Yes,  I  did." 

"What  did  Ellis  say  about  the  serial?" 

"Well" — there  he  dragged  himself  still  further  out 
of  his  muse,  and  the  laughing  lines  knit  round  his 
eyes — "I  didn't  mention  it." 

"  You  didn't?    Why,  that's  what  you  went  for." 


238  THE   MID-VICTORIAN 


"I  tried  to."  He  seemed  to  be  justifying  himself 
to  her,  justifying  his  failure  to  himself.  "This  is 
what  Ellis  said  to  me:  'Abergenny,  the  magazine's 
going  splendidly.  All  the  Jews  are  writing  to  me 
about  the  immigration  series.  Circulation's  gone 
up  like  the  deuce.' ' 

"But  you  don't  object  to  his  pleasing  the  Jews." 

"Dear,  no!  Like  to  please  'em  myself.  But 
listen  to  what  he  said  next :  '  I've  got  three  stories  of 
yours  in  the  safe.'  Well,  after  that — " 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny  thoughtfully,  "I 
see."  But  she  recalled  herself  to  her  office  as  heart- 
ener  of  the  hearth.  "  I  think  you're  too  sensitive." 

"No,"  said  Abergenny,  in  a  smiling  consideration, 
"I  don't  think  I'm  too  sensitive.  I  think  I'm  just 
sensitive  enough." 

"Well,  where  else  d'you  go?" 

"Oh,  I  dropped  in  at  the  Islander  office,  and  they 
didn't  mention  the  magazine  at  all.  They  asked  me 
to  lunch." 

"D'you  go  to  lunch?" 

"  No.     I  wasn't  hungry." 

The  wave  of  her  partisanship  towered  and  rushed 
upon  him,  bringing  the  salt  tang  of  allegiance. 

"ORob!" 

"You  see,  Ellen,"  he  went  on — he  had  begun  pat 
ting  her  hand  again;  it  looked  as  if  he  had  something 
to  break  to  her — "while  I've  been  sitting  in  my  study 
here,  the  world's  been  moving." 

"Well!"  said  Ellen.  "My  patience!  but  haven't 
we  moved  with  it?" 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  239 

"I  can't  continue  the  terrene  figure,"  said  Aber- 
genny,  "but  I've  a  strong  conviction  that  I've  got 
left." 

"You  don't  mean  it's  what  that  doctor  said  some 
where  about  not  working  after  forty?" 

"No,  no,  plenty  of  'em  are  working  after  forty — 
after  fifty — after  seventy,  working  to  beat  the  band. 
I'm  not  in  step  somehow.  I  fitted  a  certain  time. 
I  was  the  round  peg  in  the  round  hole.  The  time's 
only  something  to  be  remembered  now.  I'm  there 
just  the  same,  in  my  round  hole,  but  I  don't  move 
a  cog." 

"What  is  it?"  cried  his  wife,  in  a  passion  of  re 
sentful  wonder.  "What's  happened  to  everything? 
That's  what  I'd  like  to  know.  It's  the  same  thing 
throughout.  It's  what  makes  Philippa's  feet  so 
big." 

Having  thus  embodied  her  distaste  of  the  ath 
letic  and  well  developed,  she  was  immediately 
ashamed.  However,  he  understood  her,  though 
Philippa's  feet  had  never  been  used  by  him  to  the 
disparagement  of  modernity.  He  always  saw  them 
walking  on  the  mountain-tops  of  hope. 

"You  see,"  said  he,  "I'm  not  timely." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  timely?"  she  pursued  him. 

"I  mean  chiefly,"  said  Abergenny,  "brotherly 
love." 

He  said  it  gravely,  and  yet  with  a  curious  distaste, 
as  if  he  couldn't  accept  it  in  its  present  guise. 

"Why!  why!"  She  could  scarcely  control  her 
baffled  wonder.  To  her  he  was  brotherly  love.  She 


240  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

knew  the  kindness  of  him,  the  humility,  the  things 
he  had  done  and  been. 

"Dear  girl,"  said  Robert,  "it's  a  science  now,  and 
you  and  I  haven't  taken  that  course.  We  don't 
know  the  terms.  We  couldn't  use  'em  if  we  did. 
It's  like  saying  their  creed  in  their  sleep.  We  only 
say  it  when  we're  awake.  They're  chanting  their 
creed,  they're  printing  it,  putting  up  posters,  turn 
ing  out  pamphlets,  cheap  editions,  Editions  de  luxe." 

She  stopped  following  him  there.  He  had  got  into 
the  cloud  where  he  hid  sometimes  and  talked  to  him 
self,  and  she  was  content  because  the  obscurity  of 
the  cloud  was  soothing  to  him,  and  she  could  always 
think  it  over  afterward. 

"It's  an  esoteric  society,"  said  he,  "with  pass 
words.  'Do  you  love  your  brother  man?  If  you 
don't  say  so,  you  don't.  Repeat  the  misdeeds  of  the 
industrials.  Give  the  lineage  of  the  conspicuous 
railroad  robberies.  If  you  can't,  you'll  get  left.' 
Ellen,  as  sure  as  shooting,  I  am  left." 

He  was  making  a  joke  of  it.  That  was  serious,  ap 
palling.  The  puppets  he  had  dressed  up  for  jokes 
had  been  skeletons,  spooks  he  was  actually  afraid  of. 
Tears  were  spotting  the  pretty  gray  of  Ellen's  dress. 
For  one  of  the  few  times  in  his  life,  Abergenny  failed 
to  see  them. 

"Going  to  New  York  isn't  an  adventure  any 
more,"  he  discoursed. 

"You've  been  so  many  times,"  she  reminded  him. 

"Ah,  but  it  used  to  be  an  adventure.  I  felt  as  if 
I  were  carrying  on  nuggets  of  gold,  all  in  my  brain. 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  241 

They  wanted  it  then,  the  merchants  that  squatted 
in  the  market-place.  They  acted  as  if  I'd  got  a 
virgin  mine,  and  was  a  cunning  artificer  besides. 
They  crowded  about  me.  Now  they're  round  the 
corner  looking  at  samples  from  the  other  mines." 

"You  can  do  exactly  as  good  work  as  you  ever 
did,"  she  countered  hotly. 

"Of  my  own  pattern.  Don't  forget  that.  But 
I'd  like  one  stupendous  adventure  yet  before  I  die — 
throw  myself  into  something  neck  and  heels.  That 
was  being  young,  I  suppose,  Ellen.  We  never  knew 
what  was  coming.  We  never  cared.  That  was  the 
witchery  of  it.  If  I  could  have  an  adventure — even  a 
poor  elderly  adventure — an  adventure  on  paper — 
Hullo !  there  they  are." 

Eaton  Lang  and  Park  were  putting  their  heads  out 
of  the  low-browed  cab.  They  seemed  to  accomplish 
it  all  in  a  rush,  flung  the  man  his  coin,  seized  their 
suitcases,  pelted  up  the  steps,  and  Park  enriched 
Aunt  Ellen  with  his  home-coming  kiss.  From  that 
moment  the  house  took  on  a  tumultuous  warmth 
of  preparation.  The  "boys"  went  to  their  rooms, 
and  Mrs.  Abergenny  invaded  the  kitchen  and 
herself  impressed  cook  with  the  deeply  significant 
nature  of  the  next  repast.  It  was  not  dinner.  No 
one  dined  in  those  white-pillared  houses.  They 
simply  sat  down  to  something  indifferently  called 
tea,  an  assemblage  of  dishes  as  rich  as  hospitality 
and  inherited  cook-books  could  manage.  Mrs. 
Abergenny  put  on  her  lilac  silk  and  she  and  her  hus 
band  were  ready  to  go  into  the  dining-room  when  the 


THE   MID-VICTORIAN 

boys  came  down.  Looking  at  Park,  who,  though 
Robert's  nephew,  was,  as  she  told  them  both,  the 
only  son  she  had,  she  warmed  with  maternal  pride. 
Park  was  not  tall.  That  had  seemed  a  pity,  a  few 
years  ago;  but  now  he  had  broadened  out,  and  he  was 
hard  and  strong.  His  clean-shaven  face  had  much 
of  the  Abergenny  distinction,  though  none  of  the 
whimsical  query  that  made  her  husband's  dear 
to  her.  Park  questioned  nothing.  He  was  sure. 
Eaton  Lang  was  the  same  type  of  fellow.  They 
might  have  come  out  of  an  illustration  in  a  modern 
book.  They  ate  a  great  deal,  with  a  frank  enjoy 
ment,  and  were  very  nice  to  their  hostess.  Park  was 
chaffing  her  about  the  coquetry  of  her  lavender  and 
lace,  and  condescending  to  her  in  a  fashion  she  liked. 
It  was  a  little  cocky,  a  purely  masculine  brand,  and 
she  never  objected  to  even  a  young  man's  method  of 
setting  her  sex  right.  She  liked,  she  said,  their 
point  of  view.  But  now  she  caught  Eaton's  ques 
tion  to  her  husband. 

"What  percentage  of  Letts  are  there  here  in  the 
mills?" 

Abergenny  hesitated,  and  Abergenny 's  nephew 
burst  into  a  laugh,  quick  with  affectionate  tolerance. 

"He  can't  tell  you,  can  you,  Uncle  Rob?  He 
don't  know  a  Lett  from  a — hindrance." 

"Come,  come,  now,"  said  Abergenny.  "I'm  a 
very  intelligent  uncle,  give  me  time." 

Park  had  turned  frankly  to  his  friend,  who,  he 
knew,  was  always  snatching  the  reins  of  talk.  And 
he  did  handle  them  capably,  though  with  a  perfect 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  243 

unconsciousness  that  there  are  serviceable  modes  of 
driving  not  approved  in  the  conventions  of  whips. 

"I  told  you  what  sort  of  a  town  this  is.  Uncle 
don't  know  a  soul  out  of  his  class." 

"Oh,  come  now,"  said  uncle,  again  tolerantly, 
"what  is  my  class?  " 

But  this  Park  smilingly  waived,  as  if  both  he  and 
uncle  knew. 

"It  isn't  you  alone,  uncle,  it's  the  whole  bloomin* 
town.  Your  class  refuses  to  see  that  there's  been 
anything  new  since  the  shipbuilding  days.  Mean 
time  the  population's  shifted.  There's  a  big  per 
centage  of  Italians,  Syrians,  Lithuanians,  Poles. 
They're  citizens.  They  vote.  Their  bosses  sway 
the  vote.  But  uncle" — he  was  talking  to  Eaton 
now — "uncle  only  knows  he  meets  shiny-eyed 
foreigners  in  the  street  when  he's  pottering  down  to 
the  post-office  to  get  an  English  review,  and  they 
make  him  think  of  Italy,  and  he  goes  off  into  a  pipe- 
dream  about  his  sabbatical  spree,  don't  you,  dad? 
Park  was  very  affectionate  when  he  said  "dad." 

Mrs.  Abergenny,  listening,  felt  the  angry  color  in 
her  face.  Her  pretty  hand  found  itself  trembling  as 
she  lifted  her  fork,  and  she  laid  it  down  again  with  a 
delicate  composure.  She  was  afraid  to  look  at  her 
husband  lest  she  should  catch  the  quiver  of  eld  shown 
up  by  youth.  But  Abergenny  was  explaining  now  to 
Eaton,  and  his  unmoved,  genial  voice  gave  her  a  new 
thrill  of  partisanship.  She  was  old  enough  to  know 
composure  costs  something. 

"Park  told  you  about  our  sabbatical  spree?     We 


244  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

inherited  a  few  thousands,  and  when  I  feel  my  joints 
stiffening  and  can't  write  (because  I  can't  get  a  good 
pen),  can't  read  (because  my  arm  isn't  long  enough) 
— you  know  the  reasons  we  find  for  getting  turned 
out  to  pasture  and  keeping  our  self-respect — then 
my  wife  and  I  are  going  to  Italy  on  a  regular  bat. 
It's  going  to  be  my  last  piggishness.  She's  doing  it 
all  for  me  and  I'm  letting  her.  She'd  rather  sit 
down  here  and  see  the  grass  grow,  wouldn't  you, 
Ellen?" 

"I  want  to  go  very  much,"  said  she.  But  she 
didn't  and  she  knew  he  knew  it.  These  were  the 
pious  rites  of  her  worship. 

"Good  scheme,"  said  honest  Eaton.  "I  tell 
father  and  mother  to  spend  every  cent  they  can  for 
the  next  five  years.  After  that  it's  all  downhill. 
Sure  to  be." 

Again  Mrs.  Abergenny  flashed  a  hot  look  at  her 
husband.  It  found  him  smiling. 

"A  bit  of  ham,  Eaton?"  he  was  saying.  "See 
this  little  thin  fellow  with  the  ring  of  fat.  Doesn't 
that  tempt  you,  my  boy?  " 

It  did,  and  while  Eaton's  plate  went  up,  Eaton 
himself  insisted  f atef ully : 

"What's  the  percentage  of  all  the  foreigners  in  the 
mills?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Park.  "Phil  could  tell  you. 
How  is  Phil?" 

"Very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny.  She  felt 
disconcertingly  remote  from  her  nephew  at  that 
moment.  He  seemed  to  be  committing  Use  majesU 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  245 

all  round.  "Philippa  was  here  this  afternoon.  She 
has  a  college  friend  staying  with  her."  An  acrid 
impulse  prompted  her  to  add,  "A  girl  who  has  been 
going  about  hiring  herself  out  in  mills  and  telling  what 
she  saw." 

"By  George!"  said  Eaton.  He  had  lost  muscular 
control  of  his  eye-glasses,  in  his  recognition  of  the 
distinguished  Mary,  and  sat  looking  at  Mrs.  Aber- 
genny  with  a  myopic  softness  of  gaze  which  seemed 
somehow  to  reflect  Mary  Crewe  in  person.  "Mary 
Crewe ! "  he  offered.  Then  he  got  his  glasses  on  again 
and  with  them  resumed  his  front  of  armed  sufficiency. 

"Of  course  it's  Mary  Crewe,"  said  Park.  "I'll 
telephone  Phil  and  see  if  we  can  get  'em  over  here 
this  evening." 

"Parkman!"  breathed  his  aunt.  She  had  de 
termined,  after  the  first  incursion  of  these  redoubtable 
young  Scythians,  not  to  be  surprised.  The  infant 
generations  shouldn't  catch  her  napping.  She  would 
even  entertain  their  catchwords  as  legitimate  Eng 
lish  and  no  bastard  brood.  But  she  had  to  add,  be 
cause  the  discipline  of  manners  demanded  it,  "Don't 
you  think  you'd  better  ask  if  you  might  call?  " 

Park  was  innocent  of  anybody's  ban. 

"They'd  better  come  here,"  said  he.  "They're 
great  girls.  Dad'll  love  to  hear  'em." 

"Do  you  know  Philippa's  friend?"  Mrs.  Aber- 
genny  was  asking  Eaton,  fixing  him  at  the  moment, 
all  unconsciously,  with  a  gaze  of  frigor  bidding  him 
beware  how  he  spoke  of  young  ladies  with  the  laxity 
Park  had  so  unhappily  betrayed. 


246  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

"Not  personally,"  said  Eaton.  "Know  her  work, 
of  course." 

"Oh,  we've  got  to  have  'em,"  said  Park,  "unless 
they've  something  on  to-night.  Is  Mary  advertised 
to  speak?  " 

"Not  that  I  have  heard,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny, 
with  an  inclusive  dignity  encircling  all  young  women 
who  might  speak. 

Park  did  telephone,  and  the  girls  would  be  de 
lighted  to  come,  though  late.  They  had  to  go  first 
to  the  mystery -play  rehearsal.  And  they  did  come 
by  nine,  after  an  interval  of  De  Koven  and  Victor 
Herbert,  rendered  happily  by  the  boys  in  turn  at  the 
piano. 

"Fancy!"  said  Abergenny  to  his  wife,  in  an  in 
credulous  delight  at  the  moment  when  Park  was 
letting  the  girls  in  at  the  door.  "They  don't  bring 
their  slippers  now.  They  bring  their  brains." 

By  the  time  then*  hostess  got  to  them  they  had 
their  hats  off  in  the  hall,  and  instantly,  in  an  incur 
sion  of  youth  tumultuously  splendid,  they  were  in 
before  the  fire.  Philippa  wore  her  morning  suit,  the 
tailored  skirt,  the  shirt-waist  and  stiff  collar,  but 
Mary  Crewe,  a  redundant  type  of  beauty,  was  in 
blue  silk,  lacy  and  tumbled  from  long-continued  pack 
ing  and  an  imperfect  understanding  of  what  a  hot 
iron  can  do.  She  had  drooping  slantwise  lids  and  an 
irregular,  enchanting  mouth,  full  bloom  of  the  cheeks, 
and  an  irresistible  laugh. 

"How  that  girl  has  escaped  marriage! "  Abergenny 
managed  in  an  aside  to  his  wife  while  the  others  were 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  247 

playing  a  quick  game  of  question  and  reply.  There 
they  were  at  this  village  hearth,  the  shrine  of  se 
curity,  loud  in  what  seemed  to  be  an  investigation  of 
turmoil  in  the  corners  of  the  earth.  China  and  Mo 
rocco  were  pawns  in  their  hands;  Persia  was  a  card 
of  destiny.  Mexico!  they  struck  that  like  a  warning 
note  to  summon  the  continent,  all  continents,  to  ac 
countability  for  the  condition  of  the  man  who  worked 
with  his  hands.  This  man — he  was  known  by  a  big 
generic  Labor — seemed  to  be  the  atom  for  whom  the 
earth  was  swung  and  the  moon  and  stars  created. 

Inga,  pink  from  her  run  home  after  rehearsal,  came 
in  to  bring  a  basket  of  wood  for  the  fire,  and  Mrs. 
Abergenny  glanced  up  at  her  sharply  to  see  whether 
she  wore  another  look.  She  must,  if  Labor  was  the 
true  mistress  of  the  world.  She  wouldn't  have  been 
surprised  to  see  Inga  with  a  definite  circlet  on  her 
brow,  such  as  queens  used  to  wear  with  no  foreboding, 
or  Inga  grown  colossal  like  the  Melian  Victory. 
But  Inga  was  unchanged,  soft-footed,  deft,  and  the 
others  didn't  see  her  at  all.  Only  Philippa  gave  her 
a  little  smiling  nod,  and  moved  a  chair  slightly  to  let 
her  pass,  and  Abergenny  got  up  and  took  the  wood 
from  her  and  said: 

"Don't  do  that  again,  Inga.  It's  too  heavy.  If 
Jake  isn't  there,  call  me." 

But  how  the  news  of  the  world  coruscated  in 
sparks  from  the  running  wheel  of  talk!  The  air 
beat  with  the  aroma  of  young  blood,  young  breath. 
The  four  adventurers  into  their  new  continent  of 
hope  were  triumphant  with  the  working  possibilities 


248  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

of  the  land.  It  was  all  promise  within  a  hair  of  ful 
filment.  They  named  the  paths  they  had  cut 
through  the  country  of  their  conception.  They 
brought  big  tales  of  smashing  the  natives  and  the 
toll  of  the  slain:  so  many  capitalists  dead  by  the 
Mauser  of  investigation,  so  many  railroads  posted 
with  cautionary  guide-posts,  "This  way  to  hell." 
Abergenny,  on  the  run,  followed  them  like  a  game 
old  dog  at  the  wake  of  the  pack.  He  had  his  special 
intoxication:  the  seething  of  young  life,  the  glitter 
of  untried  knights  athirst  for  battle. 

"But  don't  slay  more  than  you  can  resurrect," 
he  caught  himself  murmuring.  And  then, 

With  my  cross-bow  I  shot  the  albatross 

Nobody  heard  him,  nobody  but  his  wife,  and  when 
she  called  from  her  end  of  the  semicircle : 

"What  is  it,  Rob?"  he  gave  her  a  little  crooked 
reassuring  smile  that  bade  her  be  silent  as  he  meant 
to  be.  But  presently  there  came  a  name  he  knew. 
It  was  an  English  name  of  some  repute  in  ink.  He 
did  want  to  speak  there.  If  anything  was  his 
province,  it  was  the  charted  shore  about  the  sea  of 
ink.  But  they  used  their  catchwords  here  too,  and 
Abergenny  had  to  remind  himself  that  he  had  had 
catchwords  in  his  day,  imbibed  from  authority,  forty 
years  ago,  only  he  had  thought  them  academic. 

"Galsworthy  is  It  at  present,"  said  Mary,  and 
Lang  capped  the  verdict  by  pronouncement  on 
Shaw:  "the  biggest  thing  since  Aristophanes." 

Mrs.  Abergenny  wasn't  entirely  controlled  by  her 


THE  "MID-VICTORIAN  249 

husband's  warning  look.  Here  she  did  cast  her 
trembling  ballot,  wondering  why  Rob  couldn't 
represent  her. 

"  Shaw  is  a  vulgar  man.  I  saw  one  of  his  plays  once, 
and  I  shouldn't  willingly  see  another.  If  either  of  you 
girls  are  ever  invited  to  go  I  hope  you'll  refuse." 

"Dear  auntie!"  said  Park,  generously. 

He  laid  his  hand  on  hers,  and  she  let  it  lie  there  and 
hoped  he  didn't  feel  the  pulses  beating  underneath. 
But  Eaton  was  talking  to  Abergenny. 

"You  see,  Mr.  Abergenny,  we  can't  ignore  the 
tremendous  movement  over  there  in  England  among 
the  younger  men." 

"There's  always  been  a  good  deal  of  young  blood 
in  young  men,"  said  Abergenny,  with  a  mild  ap 
pearance  of  offering  a  dish  likely  to  be  refused. 

"Oh,  yes,  but  not  like  this,  Mr.  Abergenny." 

"They've  had  their  bread  riots,  they  repealed 
their  corn  laws,  they  even  abolished  the  slave  trade 
in  their  dear  old  dominion.  They've  had  some 
rather  broad  schemes  of  colonization.  Had  their 
visionists,  too.  Even  old  Southey  dreamed  about 
the  Susquehanna.  Also  there  was  a  disquieting 
French  Revolution  next  door  and  Boney  imminent. 
Oh,  there's  been  something  doing  in  that  vicinity 
for  quite  a  number  of  years." 

"But  not  like  this,"  chanted  the  young  voices, 
in  a  harmony  almost  too  gay  to  fit  the  sombre 
theme.  "No,  it's  not  like  this." 

"No,"  said  Abergenny,  "I'm  not  prepared  to  say 
it  was  like  this." 


250  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

Mrs.  Abergenny  looked  across  the  young  pink 
faces  in  a  rage  of  revolt  against  them  all. 

"It  is  like  this,"  she  wanted  to  cry  out.  "If 
Robert  says  it  is,  it  is." 

But  for  a  moment  then  she  was  placated.  For  it 
appeared  that  Eaton  Lang,  who,  with  the  precocity 
of  the  age,  had  produced  two  plays,  was  putting  the 
barrels  of  money  he  had  amassed  into  a  magazine,  and 
she  made  no  doubt,  when  he  began  to  tout  his  scheme, 
that  Robert  was  to  come  in  for  a  serial.  Park,  it 
appeared,  had  two  shares  in  the  concern.  He  had 
written  no  play.  All  his  potentiality  for  invest 
ment  lay  in  his  hand-to-mouth  journalism.  But  he 
was  investigating,  organizing.  He  was  "on  to" 
a  few  things.  He'd  show  them  yet.  But  it  also 
became  obvious  that  Lang  had  no  leaning  toward 
serials,  unless,  indeed,  they  concerned  the  Syrian 
immigrant.  Philippa,  taking  him  to  the  mystery 
play,  was  conferring  an  editorial  benefit. 

"You  know  the  sort  of  fellows  he  wants,  Phil," 
said  Parkman:  "cobblers  or  mill-hands,  that  can 
sit  down  and  reel  off  the  facts.  We'll  dig  out  an 
interpreter  and  maybe  get  a  stenographer,  and  we're 
made.  It's  a  cinch." 

Philippa  knew  perfectly.  She  could  put  her  hand 
on  half  a  dozen  men,  all  conversant  with  want  at 
home,  all  with  the  wit  to  remember  the  process  by 
which  unskilled  labor  was  lured  over  here  to  the 
ideal  conditions  that  slumped  to  chaos,  once  the 
workman  grappled  with  them.  She  had  a  fluent  as- 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  251 

semblage  of  strange  names  ready  for  him.  These 
men  were  of  her  special  friends. 

It  was  throughout  an  evening  of  talk  full  of  light 
and  color  and  go.  Though  it  began  late  it  lasted 
into  the  night.  At  the  end  Park  and  Eaton  took 
the  young  women  home — Mrs.  Abergenny  wondered, 
with  a  flouting  humor  foreign  to  her,  if  Park  would 
have  to  be  prompted — and  when  they  came  back 
they  were  not  talking  about  the  general  decadence  of 
the  world.  They  were  discussing  Mary  Crewe's 
equipment  for  conquest. 

"A  very  crumby  little  person,"  Eaton  Lang  was 
vociferating  in  a  pleased  excitement. 

"Very  crumby  indeed,"  said  Park  succinctly. 
"Mary's  all  right.  So's  old  Phil.  Going  to  bed, 
Aunt  Ellen?  Guess  we  shall  have  to  sit  up  a  spell 
and  smoke." 

Abergenny,  too,  had  meant  to  hang  about  for 
half  an  hour  and  smoke,  partly  to  set  his  mind  in 
order  and,  it  might  be,  to  meet  his  young  Scythians 
man  to  man,  with  no  womenfolk  by  to  ease  tensions 
and  deflect  the  stream.  He  never  had  understood 
Park  so  little.  In  the  eight  months  since  he  had 
seen  him  the  boy  had  hardened  into  a  mould  of 
individual  life.  Still  Abergenny  thought  even  he, 
whose  serials  were  not  demanded,  had  a  knack  at 
meeting  fellows  under  his  own  age,  perhaps  because 
he  liked  young  wine  as  it  frothed  out  of  the  butt. 
But  he  found  himself  going  meekly  up  to  bed  with 
Aunt  Ellen.  In  his  dressing-room  he  stood  a  mo 
ment,  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  grinned. 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

"I  wonder  what  made  me  do  that,"  said  he.  "I 
wonder  why  I  didn't  say,  'Sit  down,  boys;  try 
one  of  these.  I  imported  them  myself. "! 

"Did  you  speak,  Rob?"  his  wife  was  calling. 

"No,  darling,"  said  he,  grinning  still,  "I  didn't 
speak."  But  he  began  talking  then — profanely — 
about  his  cravat. 

Mrs.  Abergenny  retained  a  very  confused  impres 
sion  of  that  night.  It  was  moonlight,  and  she  sat 
up  on  the  white  island  of  her  bed  and  saw  the  pat 
tern  of  the  curtain  on  the  wall.  Her  husband,  too, 
awoke  and  he  saw  her  sitting  there,  a  white  fluff 
tied  round  her  head  because  she  was  afraid  of  the 
night  air,  and  she  looked  to  him  like  some  sort  of 
angel  with  a  frosty  pow.  But  she  was  wringing  her 
hands,  and  her  voice  seemed  to  wring  itself  too. 

"O  Rob,"  she  said,  "O  Rob!  I  don't  want  them 
to  love  their  brothers  better  than  you  do." 

"Come  here,  old  girl,"  said  Robert.  He  left  his 
white  island  and  came  to  hers,  and  drew  the  fluff 
to  his  shoulder.  "Don't  you  worry.  They've 
formed  a  trust,  that's  all." 

Then  the  alien  tongue  the  others  had  talked  that 
night  grew  hot  in  her  mouth,  and  she  heard  herself 
saying:  "Has  it  got  to  be  busted,  Rob?  Has  that 
trust  got  to  be  busted,  too?" 

"No,  dear,"  said  Rob.  "It  can't  be  busted- 
It'll  last  as  long  as  the  leaves  grow  in  the  spring  and 
there  is  a  lover  of  his  kind  that  wants  to  die.  Not 
that  these  boys  and  girls  want  to  die.  They're 
topful  of  life.  They're  onto  the  game." 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  253 

She  found  herself  a  little  dizzy,  even  with  that 
security  of  his  shoulder. 

"They  seem  to  feel  things  so  much,"  she  said. 
"Do  you  suppose  they  feel  them  so  much  more  than 
you  do,  Rob?" 

"Weltschmerz?"  asked  Rob.  "Some  of  them  ac 
tually  do  feel  it.  There's  always  been  your  priest 
and  your  martyr.  Some  of  them  feel  so  because 
they  like  to  be  in  the  know.  Some  of  them  get  a 
salary  out  of  it.  Some  of  them  are  sentimental. 
Some  are  forensic.  Some  are  cocky.  But  the  louder 
they  talk  the  more  it'll  get  into  the  ears  of  the  world, 
and  possibly  the  old  world'll  hypnotize  itself  into 
thinking  it  really  does  love  its  brother.  And  by  and 
by  there'll  be  things  it'll  be  ashamed  to  do." 

"Will  they  change  it?"  she  heard  herself  moaning. 
"Will  they  change  the  world  so  we  sha'n't  know  it?" 

"Oh,  we  shall  know  it  all  right,"  said  Rob  rather 
grimly.  "For  the  present  they'll  chiefly  strike  the 
fetters  off  one  leg  and  put  them  on  the  other. 
They'll  overthrow  Dagon  that  is  Capital  and  set  up 
Dagon  that  is  Labor.  And  as  soon  as  Dagon  that 
is  Labor  finds  he's  god,  he  will  behave  exactly  as 
Dagon  that  is  Capital  did  and  snuff  out  of  his  brazen 
nostrils  for  human  sacrifice." 

"Don't,  Rob,"  said  she,  for  the  moonlight  seemed 
to  tremble  on  the  wall.  "God  won't  let  them  do 
such  things.  At  least  I  hope  he  won't." 

"Do  you  think  any  of  it's  done  without  him?  Do 
you  think  it's  these  atomies  of  children  that  are 
making  all  the  pother?  It's  God  himself,  you  little 


254  THE  MID- VICTORIAN 

Unitarian,  you.  He's  increasing  the  police  force. 
Lots  of  the  force  are  being  bribed,  but  still  they've 
got  the  badge." 

"Is  God  on  their  side?"  Ellen  was  crying.  "Is 
He  in  it,  too?" 

"He's  on  everybody's  side,  you  simpleton,"  said 
Rob.  "Didn't  you  know  that?  Also  they've  got 
science  up  their  sleeve." 

"I  don't  want  science,"  said  his  Ellen.  "I'm  not 
accustomed  to  it.  I'm  accustomed  to  religion." 

"Poor  duckie,"  said  the  voice.     "Poor  old  duck." 

In  the  morning  she  awoke  with  that  apprehensive 
feeling  of  expecting  to  see  the  spectres  of  the  night 
before.  But  the  room  looked  quite  the  same,  and 
the  sunlight  on  her  pin-cushion  was  reassuring. 
Rob  strode  about  whistling  in  his  dressing-room,  and 
she  called  to  ask  if  he  was  all  right. 

"Yep,"  said  he,  a  paraphrase  he  never  used  unless 
he  was  right  indeed. 

Ellen,  as  soon  as  her  hair  was  done,  went  in  to 
give  him  his  morning  kiss. 

"Did  anything  happen  in  the  night?"  she  asked 
him. 

Rob  looked  fresh-colored  and  agreeable.  No,  he 
told  her.  Nothing  particular,  he  guessed.  Same 
old  night. 

"I  feel  as  if  I'd  talked  in  my  sleep,"  said  Ellen. 
"  I  wish  I  could  remember  all  of  it.  Some  of  it  I  can. 
I'll  try  to  tell  you  when  there's  time." 

But  after  putting  the  pin  in  her  lace  collar  she 
came  back. 


THE   MID-VICTORIAN  255 

"Rob,"  she  said,  "don't  you  suppose  Eaton  will 
ask  you  to  do  a  serial  for  his  magazine?  Don't  you 
suppose  that's  what  he's  really  here  for?" 

"No,  child,"  said  Rob.  "Don't  think  it.  He 
wants  a  serial  on  the  way  to  tell  ditch-diggers  how 
to  make  railroad  kings  sit  up.  He  doesn't  want  a 
story  about  common  middle-class  folks  like  you  and 


me." 


"It's  outrageous,"  said  Ellen,  "and  I'm  very 
much  hurt  to  find  Park  is  every  inch  as  bad.  Noth 
ing  interests  him — nothing — nothing — but  finding 
out  how  wicked  somebody  has  been  and  saying  so 
in  a  magazine.  And  because  you  wouldn't  do  that — 
because  you're  a  gentleman — " 

Park  and  Eaton  came  to  the  table  frothing  over 
with  the  high  spirits  they  had  carried  to  bed  with 
them.  There  were  no  lees  in  last  night's  cup,  no 
monotonies,  no  lassitude.  They  seemed  to  be,  from 
a  temperamental  point  of  view,  perpetually  pulling 
corks  and  tossing  down  a  draught  that  vivified  and 
never  undermined.  Yet  even  when  they  were  kind 
est  to  her,  Ellen  found  herself  inwardly  withstanding 
them.  What  were  they,  after  all,  but  children  en 
dowed  with  a  disproportioned  power  to  change  the 
fashion  of  serials  as  a  tailor  sways  the  mode  of  sleeves 
and  collars?  Ellen  was  having  her  eyes  opened,  and 
it  hurt.  Excess  of  light — was  it  light  or  only  glare 
cruelly  and  ingeniously  contrived  from  artificial  sur 
faces? — half -blinded  her.  Hitherto  she  had  piously 
believed  that  there  was  but  one  manner  of  serial, 
as  it  were  the  earthly  similitude  of  a  heavenly 


256  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

type  (see  Plato  on  serials)  and  that  was  Rob's. 
Others  might  differ  from  it  as  one  star  from  another, 
but  all  were  in  harmony,  for  none  could  really  con 
travene  Rob's,  which,  with  Dickens's  and  Thack 
eray's,  fitted  the  heavenly  archetype.  And  here 
were  two  boys  sitting  in  the  seats  of  authoritative 
selection,  and  Rob,  since  we  must  use  the  speech  of 
the  day,  "not  in  it." 

"We  won't  come  back  for  luncheon,"  said  Park. 
"I  told  Phil  and  Mary  we'd  drop  in  for  rehearsal  and 
see  if  there  wasn't  something  we  could  do." 

"By  George,"  said  Abergenny,  "I'd  like  to  butt 
in  there." 

"Sure,"  said  Park.  "Go  to  the  play.  We'll 
all  go.  Take  you,  Aunt  Ellen." 

"I'd  like  mighty  well  to  see  the  rehearsal  when  the 
people  are  themselves,"  said  Abergenny.  "Why 
didn't  I  know  this  was  going  on?  Syrians,  aren't 
they?" 

"  Yes.  All  of  'em  in  the  mill.  They're  taking  the 
noon  hour  for  a  last  go.  Phil's  ordered  in  crackers 
and  coffee." 

"I'd  even  bring  some  cheese  if  they'd  take  me  in," 
said  Abergenny  humbly.  He  felt  like  a  very  little 
boy  begging  absurdly  for  what  he  mustn't  have. 

But  Park  wasn't  refusing  him.  He  didn't  even 
see  the  little  boy  was  begging. 

"Be  back  by  five,  Aunt  Ellen,"  he  contributed. 
"There'll  be  something  to  do  to  the  stage.  Always 


is." 


They  went  robustly  down  the  path,  each  with  his 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  257 

film  of  smoke  behind  him.  Ellen  spoke  then,  in- 
temperately,  as  she  used  to  speak  when  she  and  Rob 
were  young  married  folk. 

"I'm  as  mad  as  fire." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Rob,  "they're  only  inheriting  the 
earth  in  their  turn.  We  heard  Dickens  read." 

"But  that,"  said  Ellen,  in  a  perplexed  irrele 
vance,  "was  a  long  time  ago." 

"Yes,"  said  Rob,  "that's  the  mischief." 

That  night  they  did  go  to  the  play.  Ellen  washed 
off  her  temper  in  shame,  wore  her  gray  silk  and 
amethyst  pendant,  and  tried  to  be  affectionately  soft 
to  Park.  Yet  Park,  in  his  defined  preoccupations, 
didn't  need  her  easements.  He  and  Eaton  dis 
appeared  behind  the  scenes,  and  Ellen,  in  the  con 
fusion  and  hammering  before  the  prologue,  guessed 
at  their  activities.  But  Rob  wasn't  thinking  of  the 
boys.  He  was  looking  about  him  in  an  even  grateful 
delight  over  the  picturesqueness  of  the  new  harmoni 
ous  scene.  This  was  a  little  old  church  built  on  the 
severe  lines  of  the  early  meeting-house.  The  gal 
leries  were  beautifully  panelled.  Topping  the  win 
dows  were  fan-lights.  The  Unitarians,  ever  since 
they  sold  it,  in  a  madness  of  prosperity  induced  by 
the  gift  of  a  new  sandstone  church  righteously  and 
inalienably  Gothic,  had  been  rather  sore  on  not  at 
least  preserving  it  as  a  memorial  of  their  faith. 
The  Syrians  had  it  now.  An  early  comer  that  night 
might  have  looked  to  see  New  England  ladies  of  an 
older  time  come  rustling  in,  in  softest  silks  and 
bonnets  lined  with  rosy  wreaths;  but  Ellen  Aber- 


258  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

genny  was  the  only  one  of  that  dim  lineage.  When 
the  audience  did  come,  late,  quick-breathed  from  the 
haste  of  preparation  after  work,  it  was  an  incursion 
of  the  East.  Abergenny's  eyes  lighted  fires  of  that 
delight  the  artist  only  knows :  over  the  dusk  of  their 
hair,  the  flash  of  glance  and  teeth,  their  lithe  sym 
metry,  or  the  teeming  physical  life  in  them.  They 
were,  Ellen  thought,  noting  their  scarfs,  overlaid  in 
scales  like  spangled  snakes,  and,  too,  the  encompass 
ing  'modern  hat,  very  much  dressed.  There  were 
girls  all  beauty,  made  by  nature  for  her  imperious 
uses,  as  unconscious  as  the  nymphs  born  only  to  lead 
in  the  dawn.  The  men  came,  most  of  them,  in  their 
working  clothes,  lustrous-eyed  creatures,  swarthy, 
certainly  lowering,  perhaps  morose.  That  was  the 
illusive  story  the  type  told  of  itself,  its  darkness,  its 
terrifying  brilliance.  And  then  it  smiled,  and  what 
sunshine,  what  ingenuous  candor!  Ellen  was,  she 
knew,  even  though  so  slightly,  out  of  her  element. 
None  of  her  friends  had  come.  She  missed  the 
warmth  of  neighborly  recognitions.  But  Rob  was 
happy.  She  felt  the  weather  of  it. 

"Look  at  'em,"  he  whispered.  "Everybody's 
young.  No,  they're  not.  There's  a  grandmother. 
But,  hang  it!  the  others  flash  so,  you  don't  see  any 
body  over  thirty-five.  And  every  man  Jack  of  'em's 
in  the  midst  of  his  adventure,  if  it's  only  cobbling 
boots." 

Then,  before  she  could  assemble  half  uncompre 
hending  sympathies  to  meet  him,  the  curtain  was 
pulled  aside  and  the  play  began. 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  259 

The  play  was  the  story  of  the  poor  maid  who  sets 
her  little  room  ready  to  receive  the  Christmas  King, 
and  then,  in  wistful  sacrifice,  gives  the  cot,  the  bread, 
the  wine,  to  the  wandering  three,  father,  mother  and 
child,  who  have  been  turned  from  other  doors.  And 
later,  when  the  kings  and  magi  follow  the  star  to  her 
low  roof,  there  wait  the  family  she  has  sheltered,  and 
it  is  Joseph  and  Mary  and  the  little  Jesus,  in  their 
right  radiance.  An  interpreter  rehearsed  the  story 
of  each  scene  to  his  people  in  their  own  tongue.  The 
actors  had  the  sincerity  of  life.  Even  their  clothes 
were  shreds  and  patches  of  reality.  The  Aber- 
gennys  knew  this.  Philippa  had  told  them.  These 
were  not  costumes  hired  from  a  shop.  They  were 
intimate  bits  of  the  old  life  at  home,  treasured  heir 
looms  from  chests  in  poor  dark  lodgings  or  lent  by 
neighbors  from  as  serious  intent.  The  stage  was 
lighted  with  candelabra  only;  but  that  insured  a 
trembling  beauty.  The  dim  interiors  were  like 
priceless  pictures  mellowed,  in  the  safety  of  old  gal 
leries,  by  the  airs  of  time. 

Ellen  Abergenny  found  herself  floating  back  to 
Nazareth.  The  simplicity  of  the  play  beat  at  her 
heart.  The  painstaking,  broken  words,  the  oriental 
dress — what  were  these  but  the  living  memory  of 
Sunday  afternoons  fifty  years  ago,  when  she  had 
been  allowed  to  turn  the  leaves  of  the  great  picture 
Bible  and  follow  out  the  story?  An  indefinable 
harmony  pervaded  the  room.  Raucous  winds  of  the 
present  might  be  blowing  outside  these  fan-lighted 
panes,  but  the  minds  of  the  people  met  and  abode  in 


260  THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

consonance  on  an  isle  of  inextinguishable  beauty  and 
so  of  calm.  To  Ellen  Abergenny  the  little  irritations 
that  hurt  the  flesh  became  like  pebbles  on  the  road 
to  pilgrimage.  They  bruised,  but  the  flesh  would 
heal,  and  in  the  pilgrimage  accomplished  even  sharper 
ills  would  be  forgotten.  The  water  of  life  at  that 
altar  of  unerring  adjustment  which  eye  hath  not 
yet  seen  would  wash  and  heal  the  sting. 

Still  she  felt  the  march  of  time,  though  now  its 
kindliness.  The  fashion  of  this  world  was  passing 
away.  The  stream  was  running  and  on  it  her  little 
craft,  so  swiftly  that  when  she  sought  to  take  her 
childish  reckoning  the  spot  where  she  would  have 
recorded  it  had  been  sucked  back  into  the  abysm  of 
time.  Whatever  peaceful  backwater  she  might 
find,  it  would  still  be  to  see  the  stream  rushing  un 
endingly  by.  The  stream  had  always  been  rushing, 
she  knew;  but  once  she  had  had  the  spirit  to  love 
the  buoyancy  of  the  boat,  the  strength  to  snatch  at 
flowers  low-growing  on  the  shore.  If  there  was 
stability  anywhere,  was  it  not  this  wherein  she  was 
bound  by  chains  of  inherited  belief  to  Nazareth? 
And  these  were  bound  with  her:  the  workmen  out 
of  the  East,  the  uncomprehended  obscurity  of  his 
mind  the  stage  for  this  story  of  the  God  made  man. 
Even  when  at  the  story's  close  the  Virgin,  with  an 
ineffable  welcome  of  humid  eyes  and  smiling  mouth, 
received  the  maid,  now  all  amaze,  it  was  no  shock 
that  Mary,  Mother  of  God,  was  Inga.  It  was  not 
Inga  in  the  illusion  of  the  flesh.  It  was  Inga's  in 
ner  self  that  used  Inga's  body  for  its  working  garb. 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  261 

When  it  was  over,  Ellen  wished  she  could  have  hur 
ried  home,  her  little  pictures  of  the  Nativity  clasped 
to  her  breast.  How  should  they  stay  unbroken 
when  the  shiny-eyed  audience  dissolved  into  the 
gay  fellowship  of  men  and  women  relaxed  after  the 
tension  of  "sitting  at  a  play"?  The  actors  came 
from  behind,  still  in  costume,  as  if  immediately  from 
the  East.  Park  and  Eaton  came,  and  Mary  and 
Philippa.  The  young  Scythians  were  in  high 
feather.  Philippa  was  openly  proud,  her  people 
had  done  so  well.  They  went  about  among  the 
crowd  with  most  familiar  greetings.  Eaton  was  put 
into  the  hands  of  three  black-eyed  men  who  had 
facts  to  give  him  volubly  though  in  this  unaccus 
tomed  tongue:  the  special  facts  up-to-date  editors 
are  thirsting  for.  There  were  gay  little  encounters 
in  swirls  and  eddies,  and  Abergenny  and  his  wife, 
rather  shaken  from  the  quality  of  emotion  the  even 
ing  had  brought,  stood  aside,  quite  out  of  it,  yet  not 
pathetically  so.  They  were  both  carrying,  in 
quickened  minds,  their  little  pictures  of  the  Nativity. 
Ellen  was  wondering — she  could  not  help  it — from 
no  sense  of  aesthetic  privilege,  if  she  and  Rob  were 
the  only  ones  to  have  felt  the  beauty  of  it  over 
whelmingly.  She  asked  him  that,  in  a  self -dis 
trustful  commonplace. 

"Do  you  think  they  saw  how  lovely  it  was?" 

Robert  gave  her  his  quick  comprehending  look. 

"These  people?  Not  a  doubt  of  it.  Park  and  the 
girls  don't  know  much  about  it  because  they  were 
pulling  the  wires.  Don't  you  see,  these  boys  and 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN 

girls  are  too  busy  keeping  the  marionettes  moving 
to  get  much  effect  of  emotional  beauty.  They're 
doing  things.  They're  doing  everything.  It's  great 
— in  a  way." 

Inga,  the  Virgin's  veil  put  off  for  her  black  dress 
and  jacket,  came  down  the  aisle.  She  was  hurrying 
as  well  as  she  might  for  the  greetings  ready  for  her, 
hurrying  away  from  the  greetings,  it  seemed,  for 
matters  more  immediate.  There  was  nothing  of  the 
festival  about  Inga.  A  serious  wistfulness  made 
her  pale  face  wonderful.  Her  eyes  met  Mrs.  Aber- 
genny's.  They  seemed  to  ask  pardon  for  something: 
perhaps  for  not  walking  in  her  list  slippers  and  being 
armed  with  the  little  tray.  Perhaps  really  they  asked 
why  Mrs.  Abergenny  was  there.  Mrs.  Abergenny 
bent  to  her  with  an  impulse  outside  her  will. 

"Don't  hurry,  Eva,"  she  said. 

"I  shall  be  there  before  you,  Mrs.  Abergenny," 
said  Inga,  in  her  precise  English.  "Cook  will  be 
ready  to  serve." 

"Stay  here,"  said  Mrs.  Abergenny,  "while  the 
others  do." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Inga.  "  Thank  you,  Mrs.  Aber 
genny." 

"  Stay  and  talk,"  said  Abergenny,  his  warm,  kind 
smile  upon  her.  "  Stay  as  long  as  the  rest  do,  as 
long  as  you  like." 

"  When  you  come  home,"  said  his  wife,  "  have 
something  to  eat  and  go  to  bed.  I  can  manage  sup 
per.  You're  tired,  child." 

Inga  looked  her  in  the  face.     She  had,  perhaps, 


THE  MID-VICTORIAN  263 

never  done  that  before  with  so  full  an  assurance.* 
The  eyes  of  the  two  women  met  and  exchanged  un- 
fashioned  messages,  announcements  that  the  souls 
of  them  might  possibly  understand  and  find  no  means 
of  communicating  to  the  outer  selves  that  lived  by 
formulae.  What  Inga  felt  Ellen  Abergenny  could 
not  know.  But  she  knew  one  thing  she  thought  of 
Inga.  The  blood  had  run  into  the  girl's  cheeks  and 
trembled  on  her  lips.  In  her  face  was  something 
moved  and  humid. 

"She  is  nothing,"  Mrs.  Abergenny  thought,  with 
a  shock  of  wonder,  "but  a  child." 

The  glance  broke.  Inga  gave  a  little  "Thank 
you,"  and  Abergenny  and  his  wife  moved  out. 
They  needn't  wait  for  the  dear  Scythians  who  had 
forgotten  them.  At  the  door  Abergenny  halted  and 
looked  once  more.  Still  the  room  was  gay  with 
talk.  Eaton  Lang,  mobbed  by  Syrian  eloquence, 
was  listening,  listening,  and  Mary  Crewe  stood  by 
him,  the  solvent  apparently  between  the  workmen 
who  knew  and  trusted  her  and  the  avid  magazine 
man.  Park  and  Philippa,  too,  had  collected  a  group; 
theirs  was  comedy. 

Abergenny  and  his  wife  turned  again  and  went 
home  to  overlook  their  careful  hospitalities. 

"They  seem  to  have  paired  off,"  said  Abergenny. 
He  put  his  hand  over  Ellen's  lying  on  his  arm.  It 
was  an  old  custom. 

"You  can't  tell,"  said  Ellen  vaguely.  "Manners 
are  so  different  now.  Still  I  believe  Park  and  Phil 
ippa — if  Park  gets  ahead." 


264  THE  MID- VICTORIAN 

Then  they  were  silent,  though  Abergenny  looked 
up  and  said,  as  if  he  had  discovered  a  constellation 
to  the  good: 

"There's  the  dipper." 

But  they  were  thinking  according  things:  of  the 
whirling  of  the  world  and  the  constant  stars  that  yet 
are  whirling  too,  of  the  Nativity  and  the  one  star  that 
had  led  them  to  this  place. 

"It'll  be  nice  in  Italy,"  said  Ellen  with  no  preface, 
when  they  came  to  their  own  door. 

Abergenny  had  his  hand  on  the  latch.  But  he 
withdrew  it  and  looked  up  at  the  heavens  again. 

"No,"  said  he,  "I  sha'n't  go  to  Italy." 

"Not  go?" 

"No.  We'll  turn  that  money  over  to  Park  for 
shares  in  their  freebooter  magazines.  I'll  buy  him 
a  pou  sto,  and  he  shall  push  the  world.  Let  'em 
push.  I'm  willing  to  be  their  fulcrum.  It's  about 
all  I  can  do  for  'em.  And,  by  George,  I'm  going  to 
be  in  it.  It's  my  last  adventure." 


FATHER 

SANDY  BAR,  the  green  amphitheater  backed  by 
hills  where  the  Esoterics  held  their  summer  con 
ference,  was  marked  on  the  east  by  a  line  of  shingly 
beach,  and  here  the  younger  Esoterics  paced  and 
murmured  after  the  evening  talk.  There  was  from 
time  to  time  an  alien  visitor,  often  a  reporter  hu 
morous  enough  to  wonder  what  the  sea  thought  of 
such  palaverings  at  its  threshold:  how  old  Triton, 
come  up  to  "blow  his  wreathed  horn,"  took  these 
mysteries  of  the  East  revamped  for  the  apprehension 
of  the  West,  and  what  the  mermaids,  in  gregarious 
midnight  hair-combings,  tittered  to  one  another 
about  this  cultured  interchange  of  earth  men 
and  maids.  People  without  even  a  slant  toward 
mysticism  liked  to  come  here  for  "the  course," 
because  the  spot  itself  was  so  idyllic,  and  the  prac 
tical  side  of  high  thinking  so  admirably  arranged. 
The  food  was  exquisite  and  reasonable.  "Of  course 
it's  all  in  the  air,"  solid  matrons  would  own,  after 
confessing  they  had  stayed  at  Sandy  Bar  every 
minute  they  could  filch  from  a  holiday  due  some 
where  else,  "but  it's  really  very  amusing.  Excellent 
table.  Same  cook,  you  know,  three  of  them,  broth 
ers.  They  come  every  summer.  It's  quite  remark 
able  what  they  do  with  cream  and  nuts."  Every 
body  went  away  soothed  and  always  fatter;  content, 

265 


266  FATHER 

too,  in  a  holy  way,  because  they  had  been  fingering 
strange  religions,  and  had  not  got  burned,  but  only 
pleasantly  warmed  to  a  sense  of  then*  own  broad- 
mindedness. 

Mrs.  Evelyn  Dart  arrived  with  Evie,  her  nineteen- 
year-old  daughter,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
of  a  calm  June  day.  Mrs.  Dart  had  not  come  to 
eat  or  to  pique  her  religious  emotions.  She  was  a 
speaker  in  the  course,  a  woman  who  was  said  to  make 
an  audience  "sit  up"  nearly  as  soon  as  she  opened 
her  mouth.  Her  face  was  compounded  of  oddments 
of  hints  and  expressions.  It  bore  marks  of  the 
mystic:  the  high  forehead,  the  wistful,  pale  gaze  of 
the  creature  who  has  looked  on  the  outside  of  life 
and  found  nothing  to  satisfy,  the  delicate  mouth 
ready  to  quiver  as  to  a  challenge,  and  through  the 
very  tissue  of  expression  an  urge  of  fiery  energy. 
She  wore  trailing  robes  of  a  subdued  violet,  and 
falls  of  lace  over  her  slender  hands.  Evie,  the 
daughter,  was  more  definite.  Offspring  of  her 
mother's  youth,  she  seemed  to  bear  no  relation  to 
any  mood  of  her  maturity,  the  blossom  of  a  by-gone 
year,  and  of  no  continuing  spiritual  state  of  being. 
Her  clothes  were  not  snatched  out  of  old  portraits 
or  filched  from  presses  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  They 
were  the  tailored  uniform  of  the  time,  put  on  with  an 
extreme  care.  She  "knew  her  way  about."  She 
also  convoyed  her  mother  in  accurate  comfort  over 
the  miles  of  railway  which  Mrs.  Dart  regarded 
vaguely  as  shining  tracks  from  speech  to  speech. 
Mrs.  Dart  found  the  practical  conditions  of  life 


FATHER  267 

tolerable,  though  fluctuating.  She  was  always 
being  passed  about,  chiefly  from  one  motor  to  an 
other,  and  in  this  multiplicity  of  friendly  cars — such 
was  the  continuity  of  service — she  might  have  fancied 
she  owned  one  of  a  protean  form.  And  if,  as  seemed 
unlikely,  even  hostesses  were  to  fail,  Evie  was  always 
there  to  study  time-tables  and  check  luggage  and 
find  a  quiet  room  with  the  right  exposure. 

Evie  had  just  now  consigned  their  luggage  to  a 
truck,  and  since  they  were  not  yet  expected,  decreed 
that  she  and  mother  should  walk  along  a  bosky  way 
direct  to  the  amphitheater  and  its  cottages.  Even 
in  its  approaches  Sandy  Bar  waved  a  poetic  welcome. 
You  had  no  sooner  left  the  train  than  you  found  its 
spell  at  work  upon  you;  as  if  Eastern  sages  and  doc 
tored  religions  were  not  enough,  here  were  rustling 
leaves  and  a  floral  roadside  carpeting.  The  way 
was  empty  now,  because  this  was  lecture-hour;  and 
Evie  walked  swingingly,  in  a  wholesome  response 
to  the  familiar  greenness  and  the  delightful  air.  She 
was  feeling  to  the  full  the  bright  joy  of  contrast;  they 
had  fled  from  a  heated  city  for  this  world  of  leaves 
and,  in  the  minds  at  least  of  her  mother  and  the 
Esoterics,  the  persuasiveness  of  philosophy  and  its 
implication  of  everlasting  calm.  She  knew  the 
place  well,  and  tolerantly  welcomed  it.  She  had 
plumbed  Sandy  Bar  of  old,  and  it  held  no  disappoint 
ments  for  her:  only  the  same  tepid  story  of  good 
people  seeking  to  be  more  holy  than  the  world  allows 
and  lamentably  backing  off  from  cruder  challenges. 
Her  mother,  though  light  of  foot,  and  with  every 


368  FATHER 

reason  for  sharing  this  exhilaration,  walked  drag- 
gingly.  Evie,  suddenly  aware  of  it,  threw  her  the 
questioning  glance  of  experience  in  cases  of  physical 
overthrow. 

"What's  the  matter,  mummy?"  she  inquired. 

As  if  the  question  had  been  her  cue  for  giving  out 
altogether,  Mrs.  Dart  glanced  around  vaguely  for 
some  support  and  sank  on  an  empty  bench  by  the 
way. 

"Sit  down,  Evie,"  she  said.  "I  suppose  we'd  bet 
ter  have  it  out  here." 

Evie  continued  looking  at  her,  in  grave  expecta 
tion  but  not  alarmed:  only  as  one  ready  to  face  an 
emergency  at  its  inception  and  "down"  it  without 
delay.  She  caught  the  newspaper  from  her  mother's 
grasp  and  began  to  fan  her  with  it;  but  Mrs.  Dart, 
lifting  an  impatient  hand,  swept  it  aside. 

"No,"  said  she,  "I'm  not  faint  nor  tired.  I'm 
distracted." 

"  What  about?  "  asked  Evie.    "  What's  happened?  " 

Mrs.  Dart  now  laid  a  hand  upon  the  paper  and 
drew  it  toward  her  impressively,  as  if  it  were  her 
corroborating  witness. 

"Something  in  this  paper,"  she  said.  "I  saw  it 
coming  down.  I  didn't  tell  you  then.  I  thought 
I  could  do  it  better  when  we  were  in  our  own  rooms. 
But  we  didn't  take  a  carriage — we're  walking — we 
might  meet  anybody." 

"But  you  could  have  taken  a  carriage,"  Evie  said, 
brusquely,  yet  kindly,  too.  "Did  you  want  to? 
Why  didn't  you  say  so?" 


FATHER  269 

Mrs.  Dart  grew  more  and  more  confused. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "I  didn't  think  how  it  would  be. 
But  when  I  realized  we  might  meet  him,  and  you 
unprepared — Evie,  your  father's  here." 

The  girl  stood  perfectly  silent;  only  her  face  turned 
crimson  and  the  feruled  end  of  her  umbrella  ran 
noiselessly  into  the  earth.  Her  mother  glanced  up 
at  her,  timidly  even,  as  if  she  expected  to  be  re 
proached;  and  it  was  true  that  when  Evie  did  speak 
the  words  had  a  ring  of  bitterness. 

"You  needn't  have  considered  me.  You  forget 
I've  never  seen  him." 

"Oh,  don't  say  that,"  Mrs.  Dart  besought  her, 
as  if  the  accuracy  of  testimony  were  the  end  in  view. 
"You  were  two  and  a  half." 

"When  you  were  divorced?"  prompted  Evie,  with 
a  ruthless  clarity.  "Well,  I  don't  remember  back 
of  two  and  a  half.  I  can't  recall  him." 

Mrs.  Dart,  nervously  in  haste,  sought  over  the 
newspaper.  The  paragraph  was  easily  found;  she 
had  read  no  more  since  it  struck  her  brain. 

"Here  it  is:  'John  Symonds  Dart  has  been  en 
gaged  for  three  lectures  on  "Recent  Explorations 
in  Egypt  and  their  Relation  to  the  Past,"  in  place 
of  Professor  Crandall,  put  down  for  "The  Spirit  of 
the  East."'" 

"I  shouldn't  think  they'd  want  a  man  like — 
father,"  said  Evie.  "He  doesn't  belong  in  a  show 
like  this.  He's  just  a  plain,  common  professor  at 
Yale.  Oh  yes,  he  is.  I  know  all  about  him.  I've 
read  a  lot.  The  fellows  like  him.  His  classes 


270  FATHER 

are  full.  But  he's  no  more  like  these  Johnnies 
here—" 

"Don't!"  said  Mrs.  Dart.  She  disliked  the  men 
tion  of  Johnnies,  and  had  not,  even  after  hearing 
prolific  use  of  it,  succeeded  in  defining  the  word  with 
any  degree  of  clarity.  Everything,  it  seemed,  which 
was  not  obvious  was,  in  the  vocabulary  of  Evie,  a 
Johnnie.  "He  wouldn't  have  come,  I  suppose,"  she 
continued,  "if  I  had  been  advertised  to  speak.  But 
there's  the  coincidence  of  it:  I  am  supposed  to  be  in 
Europe.  I  return  unexpectedly.  Somebody  drops 
out  of  the  Conference,  and  I  am  asked  to  take  her 
place.  Just  as  your  father  is,  don't  you  see?  So 
here  we  are  together." 

"Well,"  said  Evie  shortly,  "we  can't  turn  tail 
and  run." 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Dart.  She  held  her  fine  head 
slightly  higher.  "We  must  behave  with  dignity. 
It  is  easy — comparatively  easy.  Your  father  is  a 
considerate  person,  very.  But  I  am  only  afraid, 
Evie,  of  the  effect  on  you." 

"Why?"  said  Evie.     "I  haven't  been  divorced." 

It  was  cruel,  and  it  gave  pain,  and  it  was  never 
meant  to.  Yet  Mrs.  Dart  couldn't  blame  her.  She 
didn't  even  wince:  for  out  of  these  years  of  Evie's 
growing  up  she  had  learned  a  great  deal.  One  item, 
on  which  she  dwelt  with  a  mild  amazement,  was  that 
though  Evie  had  often  the  manner  of  a  bluff  boy, 
she  never  wilfully  hurt.  The  manner  itself  was 
the  armor  of  a  curious  age  where  young  women 
seemed  to  have  no  proper  sentiment,  or  bid  inevi- 


FATHER  JWl 

table  romance  under  a  crusted  gaiety.  But  the 
slight  outer  hardness  of  the  time  had  its  value.  It 
induced  a  lightness  of  demeanor  in  face  of  some  of 
the  bigger  complications  that  was  quite  admirable. 
Evie  had  behaved  with  a  perfect  restraint  over  the 
question  of  her  mother's  divorce.  But  here,  in  this 
green  walk  to  the  amphitheater,  she  was  breaking 
her  code.  She  asked  a  question  shocking  in  its 
crudity. 

"What's  the  matter  with  father?     Was  he  bad?" 

Mrs.  Dart  turned  distended  eyes  upon  her. 

"Your  father?"  she  gasped.  "Bad?  What  can 
you  mean  by  that?" 

"Was  father  a  bad  man?"  repeated  Evie  clearly. 
"No,  I  don't  mean  that  exactly.  I  mean,  what 
kind  of  bad  was  he?  What  made  you  divorce  him?  " 

"Your  father,"  said  Mrs.  Dart,  with  dignity,  as 
if  to  pledge  her  word  that  the  sanctity  of  the  hearth 
stone  had  not  been  involved,  "was  one  of  the  best 
men  that  ever  lived." 

"He  threw  up  his  job,  anyway.  He  deserted  you, 
didn't  he?"  Evie  pursued  inexorably.  "I  don't  call 
that  honorable  in  a  married  man." 

"It  was  part  of  his  chivalry,"  Mrs.  Dart  declared, 
still  in  her  manner  of  hot  defense.  "He  knew  I 
wanted  freedom,  and  he  gave  it  to  me.  I  had 
enough  to  live  on.  So  he  simply  withdrew.  He 
went  abroad.  That  gave  me  my  divorce." 

Evie  was  looking  at  her  now  in  pure  amazement. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  she  inquired,  "that  you 
allowed  a  man  like  father,  a  public  man,  a  man  with 


272  FATHER 

a  profession,  to  do  a  thing  like  that? — desert  his 
wife,  desert — why,  me! — he  deserted  me,  too — and 
stand  up  against  it  and  live  it  down  and  go  on  teach 
ing  when  he  found  a  chance?  And  get  a  professor 
ship?  Why,  father's  magnificent.  Father's  a  brick. 
Why  didn't  you  tell  me  that  before?" 

Mrs.  Dart  answered  from  her  eminence  of  perfect 
certainty  founded  upon  conversance  with  compara 
tive  religion  on  a  substructure  of  nice  womanly 
feeling. 

"You  hadn't  asked  me.  You  were  very  little  at 
the  time." 

"But,"  said  Evie,  now  the  defenses  were  all  down 
and  her  pent-up  curiosity  could  flood  the  plain  of 
their  habitual  intercourse,  "if  father  was  such  a 
brick  as  to  let  you  do  a  thing  like  that,  I  don't  see 
why  you  wanted  a  divorce  at  all." 

It  was  easier  to  say  the  word  with  every  repetition. 
It  was  not  easier  for  Mrs.  Dart  to  hear  it.  But  she 
answered  with  a  dignity  that  was  almost  pride  in 
the  phrases  she  had  long  ago  adopted  in  formulating 
to  herself  the  expansion  her  daughter  could  tuck  so 
neatly  into  one  word. 

"I  needed  entire  spiritual  freedom.  I  wanted  a 
fuller  life." 

"Well,  whatever  you  mean  by  that,  he'd  have 
given  it  to  you,"  Evie  was  insisting,  in  an  almost 
humorous  horror  over  the  airiness  of  the  web  that 
had  held  them.  "If  he  did  an  absurd  thing  like 
that,  went  off  and  risked  his  credit  and  gave  up  his 
home — think  of  it! — he'd  have  let  you  go  batting 


FATHER  273 

round  as  you've  always  done  and  never  said  a 
word." 

Mrs.  Dart  had  now  a  little  scarlet  spot  high  on 
each  cheek. 

"It  would  not,"  said  she,  "have  been  fair  to  him. 
I  wished  to  leave  him  the  same  spiritual  freedom  I 
was  claiming  for  myself." 

"Oh!"  groaned  Evie. 

It  was  a  sound  that  said  you  couldn't  get  any 
where  when  the  ineffable  sat  in  judgment  on  the 
obvious.  This  feeling  of  blank  discouragement  was 
the  unconscious  silent  response  she  was  always 
offering  to  her  mother's  natural  trend.  She  was 
often  proud  of  her  mother,  proud  when  the  spark 
came  into  Mrs.  Dart's  eyes  and  the  gift  of  tongues 
descended  upon  her.  She  wondered  how  mother, 
who  never  knew  anything  about  trains  and  was 
willing  to  wear  clothes  of  a  generation  past,  could 
possibly  rush  over  all  created  life  in  a  chariot  of 
fiery  possession.  This  acceptance  of  mother  as 
she  was  had  done  a  good  deal  to  enlarge  Evie's 
tolerance.  It  was  not  that  she  had  any  sympathy 
for  the  endless  discussion  of  an  ideal  way  of  life. 
The  life  seemed  to  her  merely  erratic.  She  frankly 
hated  it.  Still,  it  had  to  be  accepted,  like  volcanoes, 
that  are  not  such  kindly  breasts  of  earth  as  the 
green  New  England  hills,  but  are  in  the  landscape 
somewhere.  She  knew  there  must  really  be  some 
eccentric  chart  to  explain  her  mother's  piercing 
aspiration  and  unsatisfied  desire.  That  must  be 
the  Ideal,  Evie  thought.  She  had  heard  it  often 


274  FATHER 

enough  to  hate  it,  and  she  patiently  respected 
it.  But  now  her  mind  clung  to  the  issue  of  the 
moment. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "I  shall  speak  to  father." 
"I  hope,"  said  Mrs.  Dart,  with  that  moving 
sweetness  of  tone  a  moral  challenge  always  won  from 
her — "I  hope  there  is  no  question  of  speaking  or 
not  speaking  among  mortal  creatures  cognizant  of 
immortality." 

She  rose,  buoyed  by  a  phrase,  and  walked  lightly 
along,  and  Evie  followed.  Evie  was  ever  tender  of 
mother's  formulas.  She  knew  how  they  sustained 
her,  and  she  welcomed  this  slight  hint  of  an  abstrac 
tion  as  an  end  toward  getting  to  the  cottage  where 
they  were  to  lodge.  It  was  like  taking  a  prescrip 
tion  to  a  chemist  and  coming  away  heartened  by 
the  proof  that  remedies  exist  and  you  have  one  in  a 
bottle.  And  of  late,  too,  she  had  been  especially 
tender  of  all  mother's  queernesses,  that  must  be 
normal  somewhere,  for  she  found  mother  too  often 
tired,  and  concluded,  in  her  practical  way  of  looking 
on  at  life  and  doctoring  it  up,  that  mother  wasn't  so 
young  as  she  had  been.  Evie  never  read  Emerson 
when  she  could  help  it,  though  she  had  done  an  oft- 
repeated  task  of  looking  up  quotations ;  but  she,  like 
him,  knew  there  was  a  time  to  "take  in  sail."  She 
thought  of  it  often,  indeed,  because  she  had  seen 
aged  platform  ladies  convoyed  to  posts  of  honor  and 
called  on  for  a  "few  words"  where  they  had  once 
been  urged  to  extended  speech  and  given  a  place  on 
programs.  She  wondered  how  mother  would  bear 


FATHER  275 

it  when  her  time  came  to  find  a  newer  age  super 
seding  her. 

All  that  day  they  lived  in  a  vague,  unspoken 
excitement,  which  cooled  at  night  when  it  was 
announced  that  Professor  Dart  had  not  come,  and 
was  not  at  once  expected  Then  immediately  Evie 
dismissed  him  from  her  conscious  mind,  because 
another  great  meeting  befell  her.  She  heard  young 
Richard  Haynes  speak  on  the  Zeitgeist,  and  came  out 
of  the  little  theater,  a  sound  as  of  the  sea  in  her  ears 
and  the  voice  of  many  waters  in  her  soul. 

Haynes  was  so  beautiful  a  person  that  it  hardly 
made  any  difference  what  he  said,  or  whether  he  was 
the  profound  scholar  the  Esoterics  took  him  for  or 
a  clever  artificer  in  borrowed  goods.  He  had  the 
gift  of  words  and  a  fine  Greek  nose.  Convincing 
ness  lay  in  his  stature  and  persuasion  in  his  lovely 
voice.  Evie,  seeing  him,  understood  a  great  many 
things.  The  green  amphitheater,  instead  of  being 
an  oasis  where  wandering  Arabs  of  the  mind  met 
to  chatter  in  their  various  jargons,  became  a  holy 
place.  She  understood  now  the  intention,  at  least, 
of  all  the  languages.  She  thought  humbly  of  her 
mother  who  had  taken  the  daring  step  of  allying 
herself  to  this  territory  of  the  other  world  sprung 
up  so  vividly,  like  a  bright  garden,  in  the  midst  of 
this.  The  boys  she  had  played  tennis  with  at  for 
tunate  moments  when  her  wanderings  had  let  her 
exchange  signals  with  her  kind  were  far  away,  with 
drawn  into  as  crude  a  past  as  her  own  childhood  and 
its  childish  things.  Richard  Haynes  alone  remained, 


276  FATHER 

standing  there  in  his  beauty  on  the  platform  that 
seemed  an  eminence  for  overlooking  the  world, 
weighing  its  past  and  prophesying  futures. 

So  great  was  the  immediate  change  in  her  that  her 
mother  marveled.  The  boyish  bluffness  had  gone. 
Evie  appealed,  almost,  in  every  word  she  spoke,  yet 
not  consciously.  Her  real  self  at  last  dwelt  too  far 
from  common  intercourse.  Her  eyes  almost  humid 
in  then*  liquid  beauty,  her  movements  soft  and  still, 
she  went  about  humming  little  snatches  of  song  and 
answering  absently.  The  change  in  her  was  moving 
to  her  mother,  almost  terrifying.  She  had  never 
known  such  an  Evie. 

It  was  only  a  day  that  the  change  had  lasted,  and 
in  the  afternoon  of  it  they  met  Richard  Haynes 
in  a  shaded  walk,  and  were  formally  named  to  him 
by  one  of  Mrs.  Dart's  disciples.  Evie  was  a  marvel 
of  stillness,  but  he  read  her  at  once.  Whether  she 
had  for  him  the  significance  he  had  for  her,  or  whether 
he  liked  the  homage  of  a  radiant  girl,  he  detached 
her  from  the  group,  and  they  walked  away  together 
at  a  sufficient  nearness  to  her  mother  to  satisfy  nice 
custom.  That  night,  after  a  lecture,  when  Mrs. 
Dart  was  again  surrounded  by  her  devotees,  he 
made  his  way  straight  to  Evie  and  asked  her  to  go 
down  to  the  beach.  She  turned  instantly.  Mrs. 
Dart  thought  she  heard  her  say,  "Coming,  mother?" 
but  it  was  with  no  evident  expectation  of  being 
taken  up;  and  that  moment,  incredibly,  though 
they  seemed  to  move  with  no  haste,  the  two  were 
gone.  That  Mrs.  Dart  could  not  plausibly  follow 


FATHER  277 

them  was,  she  knew,  the  fault  of  her  own  disciples, 
crowding  about  her  with  glib  banalities. 

And  outside  the  theater,  the  heavenly  night  itself 
dispersing  them  with  its  calls  to  the  enchantment  of 
moonlight  on  the  sea,  she  came  face  to  face  with  him 
who  had  been  her  husband,  a  little  grayer,  sadder 
about  the  eyes,  significances  she  would  mark  by 
day,  but  still  incredibly  familiar,  and  so,  at  this 
moment  of  need,  still  hers.  In  the  manner  of  the 
idle  mind  running  over  its  own  chances,  she  had 
often  pictured  what  she  should  do  if  this  meeting 
happened  to  her.  It  would  be,  she  had  always 
known,  full  of  dignity  and  a  faint  sadness  like  elusive 
fragrances.  Their  spirits  would  hail,  remembering 
the  fleeting  nature  of  a  past  communion,  and 
go  on,  each  cognizant  that  there  had  been  nothing 
eternal  in  the  bond.  But  what  she  did  was  to 
stop  before  him  and  ask,  in  the  tone  of  the  mother 
whose  boy  has  "gone  in  swimming"  in  a  bottom 
less  hole: 

"Oh,  have  you  seen  Evie?" 

What  John  Symonds  Dart  thought,  exactly  what 
hail  his  spirit  had  been  prepared  to  make,  not  even 
he  knew  accurately.  He  was  a  man  of  few  words 
and  no  recognized  psychical  complexities.  After 
an  appreciable  pause  while  the  disciples  surged  past 
them,  and  Mrs.  Dart  waited  in  a  suspense  that 
predicted  Evie  as  anywhere,  he  said,  in  a  perfectly 
commonplace  tone: 

"No,  I  haven't  seen  her."  He  might  have  added 
that  this  was  an  Evie  he  had  never  seen  at  all,  but 


278  FATHER 

the  moment  didn't  seem  to  call  for  it.  "Where  do 
you  think  she  is?" 

"On  the  beach  with  Richard  Haynes,"  said  Mrs. 
Dart,  in  the  same  choked  voice,  one  she  knew  no 
more  than  he  did.  There  had  been  no  obstacles  in 
her  road  with  Evie  as  a  daughter  frankly  well- 
behaved.  "I'm  afraid  so." 

"Well,"  said  Dart,  "let's  walk  down  there  and  find 
her." 

Others,  walking  to  find  moon  and  sea  in  conjunc 
tion,  went  more  slowly,  and  Dart  and  Evelyn  were 
presently  in  the  bayberry-fringed  path  to  the  long 
beach.  It  was  wide  enough  to  walk  abreast,  and 
Mrs.  Dart  needed  no  help.  Nor  did  he  offer  any, 
save  once  when  her  trailing  dress  caught  a  "follower." 
This  he  disengaged,  a  rose  spray,  with  some  pains 
to  his  hands,  and  then  he  did  say,  practically: 

"You'd  better  take  that  up." 

She  did,  in  a  kind  of  humble  obedience,  he  seemed 
so  bound  to  release  her  from  her  fears  and  Evie  from 
the  wizard's  spell. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "I  shouldn't  feel  so  worried, 
but  it's  this  night.  It's  enchantment.  Look  at  the 
moon.  Hear  the  sea.  And  June,  too!  It  couldn't 
be  worse." 

Dart  stepped  a  little  faster. 

"You're  afraid  they'll  go  out?"  he  said.  "It's  a 
calm  sea.  The  fellow  can't  row?  Is  that  it?** 

"Oh,  dear,  no,"  said  Mrs.  Dart.  "It  isn't  the 
water.  I'm  afraid  he'll  propose  to  her  and  she'll 
accept  him." 


FATHER  279 

"Don't  you  want  her  to  accept  him?"  he  asked 
practically.  "What's  the  matter  with  him?" 

The  question  beat  upon  her  like  an  echo,  and  in 
clutching  for  an  answer  she  remembered  it  was  the 
very  one  Evie  had  put  to  her  about  her  own  husband 
and  Evie's  father.  But  she  couldn't  stop  to  fit 
coincidences.  The  argument  of  the  instant  had  to 
be  framed. 

"He's  not — "  she  said  and  hesitated.  Then  she 
ended  in  the  only  terms  that  came  to  her:  "Richard 
Haynes  isn't  the  kind  of  man  to  marry.  He's  not 
practical." 

"All  the  better  to  live  with,"  said  Dart.  "That 
is,  if  he's  got  something  to  live  on.  And  if  he  hasn't, 
I  could  turn  in  something  to  start  'em."  There  was 
nothing  unexpected  in  the  sound  of  this  to  either  of 
them.  It  seemed  a  most  logical  thing  that  they 
should  be  walking  there  in  the  moonlight,  thinking 
how  to  start  Evie.  "  How  long  has  she  known  him?  " 
Dart  inquired. 

"Since  yesterday." 

"The  devil!  What  do  they  mean  by  going  off 
and  engaging  themselves  when  they've  only  known 
each  other  since  yesterday?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  that  they  have  engaged  them 
selves,"  said  Mrs.  Dart,  in  the  very  tone  of  a  wife 
denied  a  perfect  marital  comprehension.  "It's  only 
what  I  told  you — the  moonlight — and  the  sea — 
and  the  way  he  looked  at  her.  And  he's  exactly 
the  kind  of  man  to  do  it  in  a  rush.  There's  some 
body  in  a  light  cloak.  Could  that  be  Evie?" 


280  FATHER 

Dart,  not  as  an  efflorescence  of  tact,  but  because 
he  was  trying  too  hard  to  grasp  the  bearings  of  the 
case,  did  not  see  his  chance  of  reminding  her  that 
if  he  met  Evie  by  bright  daylight  he  should  not  know 
her. 

"You  can't  prevent  their  getting  engaged  by 
coming  on  them  now  and  whipping  her  off  home," 
he  said.  "It'll  only  antagonize  'em.  Don't  you 
know  it  will?" 

"I  want  time,"  said  Mrs.  Dart  passionately.  "I 
don't  intend  to  have  her  run  her  neck  into  a  noose 
and  not  know  it  till  too  late." 

"Oh!"  said  Dart,  rather  stiffly.  "You  don't 
want  her  to  marry  at  all.  You  call  it  a  noose,  do 

you?" 

"I  do  want  her  to  marry,"  said  Mrs.  Dart.  "Of 
course  I  do.  It's  normal  and  it's  right.  But  it's 
got  to  be  a  different  kind  of  man  from  that." 

"What  kind?"  asked  Dart  curiously. 

They  were  standing  still  now  on  a  little  scrubby 
ridge  watching  the  couples  pacing  on  the  sand  below. 
The  moon  had  laid  her  lessening  track  to  the  farthest 
verge,  and  the  sea  was  murmuring. 

"Why,"  said  Mrs.  Dart,  "a  real  man,  one  that 
can  give  her  a  home,  and  not  go  round  talking  about 
other  worlds.  *  Homes  of  the  spirit,'  that's  what  he 
talks  about.  He  did  last  night,  the  first  time  she 
saw  him." 

Evelyn  heard  herself  as  if  it  were  a  stranger  in 
revolt.  She  didn't  know  these  whirling  words  and 
the  thoughts  that  bred  them.  It  seemed  to  her, 


FATHER  281 

as  it  had  many  a  time  within  the  last  year,  as  if 
she  were  in  the  grip  of  a  power  bigger  than  herself. 
The  power  might  even  be  the  universe.  It  had  got 
into  the  habit  of  saying  lately:  "You're  only  an 
atom,  and  you're  a  tired  one.  In  the  bottom  of  your 
heart  you  wish  there  were  safe  places  to  creep  into, 
where  nobody  is  entertaining  you,  and  nobody 
talks  except  about  homely  things.  You're  bored 
with  hospitality,  and  you  envy  the  women  with 
stationary  thresholds  and  own  folks."  Now,  from 
this  germ  of  discontent  within  her  she  found  herself 
amplifying  picturesquely;  but  that,  she  knew,  was 
her  habit.  Give  her  a  theme  and  she  could  always 
improvise. 

"  I  know  him.  I  know  precisely  his  kind.  Why, 
I  don't  care  if  she  marries  an  expressman — or  a 
plumber — but  I  want  her  to  have  a  house  to  live  in, 
and  a  husband  to  come  home  nights  and  talk  about 
the  baby's  throat  and  the  color  to  paint  the  floor." 

She  had  an  amazed  man  beside  her.  In  all  his 
few  years  with  her,  Dart  had  never  heard  her  express 
a  longing  for  crude  verities.  Nor  did  Mrs.  Dart 
really  know  she  had  it  in  her,  scarcely  that  she  had 
opened  the  secret  chamber  of  her  heart  and  let  out 
some  of  the  tired  longings  that  lay  there  like  dust 
unstirred.  She  was  alive  with  mother  love  and 
apprehension,  tingling  all  over  her  like  the  pricking 
of  an  acute  nervousness.  Besides  normal  mother 
consciousness,  part  jealousy  and  part  wild  fostering, 
she  felt  fear.  Her  darling,  inside  the  stockade  of 
maidenly  indifference,  had  up  to  now  been  safe. 


282  FATHER 

But  the  look  in  Evie's  eyes  had  told  a  story.  Her 
defenses  were  down,  and  Richard  Haynes,  unhin 
dered,  could  walk  in. 

"There's  nothing  the  matter  with  him,"  she 
reiterated,  as  if  in  justice  to  him.  "But  at  first 
Evie  couldn't  stand  him.  She's  fascinated  now. 
You  know  how  it  is  with  a  girl.  And  I  know  Evie. 
She's  got  to  marry  a  man! — the  kind  of  man  that 
does  things  and  won't  make  any  fuss  about  it.  He 
needn't  talk.  That  wouldn't  cut  any  ice  with  Evie 
after  the  fascination's  gone." 

If  Mrs.  Dart,  the  lecturer,  had  been  told  that 
she  would  apply  to  Evie's  own  vocabulary  for  a 
reference  to  ice-cutting,  she  would  have  smiled 
patiently  and  returned  to  her  study  of  the  Hindu 
sages.  But  now,  so  single  was  her  mood,  that  she 
was  quite  innocent  of  having  made  a  foray  outside 
her  own  preserves. 

"There!"  she  said.  "There  they  are,  by  that 
snag." 

She  started  on  the  instant  and  plunged  down  the 
ridges,  her  skirt,  again  released  in  her  excitement, 
trailing  after  and  making  her  to  Dart,  who  followed, 
abnormally  tall. 

"But,  Evelyn,"  he  said,  and  this  was  the  first 
time  he  had  used  her  name  for  years  without  the 
pang  of  loss,  "what  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"Anything,"  she  threw  back  at  him,  in  a  desperate 
whisper.  "You  get  acquainted  with  him.  Size 
him  up.  Don't  leave  them.  Don't  leave  me." 
In  the  next  instant  she  was  inquiring,  in  the  smooth 


FATHER  S8S 

tone  of  woman's  guile,  "Are  you  warm  enough, 
Evie?" 

"Perfectly,"  said  Evie.  Her  voice  in  itself  was 
exciting  to  her  mother,  who  had  known  it  in  its  old 
brusque  tones.  It  throbbed  like  an  instrument 
ready  tuned  and  now  touched  suddenly. 

"Mr.  Haynes?"  Dart  was  inquiring.  "How  do 
you  do,  sir?"  He  had  an  old-fashioned  way  of 
saying  "sir,"  and  Evie  liked  the  sound  of  it.  "Bet 
ter  have  something  on  your  head,  Evie,"  he  recom 
mended.  Then  she  knew  who  he  was.  "Here's 
my  handkerchief." 

He  shook  out  its  folds,  doubled  it  crosswise,  and, 
with  a  slow  care,  put  it  on  her  head  and  tied  it  under 
her  chin.  Evie  hated  things  on  her  head,  but  she 
accepted  this  humbly.  She  couldn't  thank  him 
easily,  for  she  felt  her  lips  trembling.  Her  chin 
trembled,  too.  She  was  warm  with  sensitive  feeling. 
His  slow,  awkward  care,  the  grave  concern  in  his 
voice,  were  pain  to  her. 

"Father! "'she  wanted  to  say,  and  say  it  over  and 
over,  just  the  one  word.  "You  dear  old  father! 
Father!" 

"There,"  said  Dart,  "I  guess  you're  fixed  now. 
Mr.  Haynes,  I  wasn't  down  in  time  to  hear  you. 
They  tell  me  the  ladies  call  you  the  new  apostle." 

Haynes  laughed  consciously,  and,  new  though  her 
enchantment  was,  Evie  winced.  "Father"  had 
spoken  bluffly,  and  Haynes  responded  like  a  girl. 
It  was  embarrassment,  she  knew,  perhaps  distaste 
for  the  flavor  added  by  "the  ladies,"  but  she  wished 


284  FATHER 

a  man  of  his  shoulders  had  found  another  way  of 
hiding  it. 

Dart  hadn't  waited  for  his  answer. 

"Let's  take  a  boat,"  he  said,  "and  row  out  there 
a  piece." 

He  might  have  meant  the  sparkling  track  laid  by 
the  moon.  Evie  was  drawn  by  the  moon  way  with 
an  ecstasy  of  longing,  and  her  mother  trembled 
before  some  power  that  was  luring  them  all.  What 
she  knew,  she  who  had  spent  her  life  in  digging 
meanings  out  of  facts,  was  that  the  night  was  lovely 
and  full  of  pain.  Evie  laughed  out  suddenly.  She 
was  thinking  she  loved  everything  about  this  father 
who  tied  up  daughters'  heads  in  handkerchiefs. 
He  had  the  tone  of  homely  things. 

Haynes  took  his  place  to  row,  and  did  it  with  a 
considered  ease  that  let  them  float,  the  ripple  lap, 
lap  against  their  keel.  He  was  heading  for  the 
moon,  and  Evie  said,  dreamily,  yet  as  if  ashamed  of 
the  unaccustomed  vagueness  of  her  thought: 

"I  never  can  get  used  to  rowing  in  the  track  of 
light,  and  yet  not  having  it  light  under  the  boat. 
It  seems  as  if  we  ought  to  see  we're  in  the  moon 
path." 

Mrs.  Dart's  mind  was  used,  through  native  bent 
and  also  long  accustomedness,  to  seizing  the  aphor 
ism  that  dwells  within  the  fact.  Wearily  she  realized 
what,  at  another  moment,  she  might  have  said;  but 
though  her  tired  mind  mechanically  responded  with 
the  aphorism,  she  couldn't  accept  it  from  any  pre 
tense  even  of  using  it.  Once  she  would  have  handed 


FATHER  285 

back  some  neat  phrase  to  the  effect  that  light  lies 
always  in  the  path  before  us,  not  in  the  field  of  mo 
mentary  action  or  repose.  But  at  this  moment  of 
bald  anxiety  it  didn't  pertain.  She  was  on  pins 
with  impatience,  wondering  why  Dart  didn't  talk, 
talk  to  Haynes,  challenge  him  to  response,  and  pluck 
out  the  heart  of  his  unsuit ability.  Presently,  as  if 
seeing  nobody  else  meant  to  do  it,  Dart  did  begin, 
but  inadequately,  Evelyn  thought,  about  athletics 
and  their  permanent  value.  She  wanted  to  hear 
Haynes  falling  into  traps  and  yielding  intimate 
avowals.  The  young  man  ought  to  be  made  to 
declare  himself  on  big  points,  recite  his  moral  and 
esthetic  creed,  lay  himself  bare  to  anxious  parent 
hood.  But  it  was  Evie  who  answered.  She  wanted 
to  know  all  about  the  collegiate  life  her  father  pre 
sided  over,  always  as  it  touched  the  side  of  sports, 
and  her  responses  were  couched  in  what  her  mother 
winced  at  as  technical  jargon,  but  that  Dart  under 
stood  as  belonging  to  the  custom  of  the  topic 
and  answered  quietly.  He  was  conservative  about 
sports,  Evie  told  him,  though  in  other  words,  and 
he  owned  it. 

"I  do  want  the  boys  developed,"  he  said,  "up  to 
the  top  notch.  But  I  can't  help  thinking,  when  I 
see  them  putting  all  they've  got  into  a  game  that's 
being  betted  on  and  yelled  at — well,  I  know  what 
it's  doing  to  their  young  hearts.  I  know  they'll 
need  'em  later." 

Yet,  strangely,  he  did  not  seem  to  Evie  any  sort  of 
mollycoddle.  She  couldn't  agree  with  him,  but  she 


286  FATHER 

accepted  him  tenderly  as  one  whose  age  had  made 
him  set  undue  value  on  conserving.  Mrs.  Dart, 
again  mechanically  responsive  to  the  stimulus  for 
poetic  illustration,  murmured  something  about 
Pheidippides,  and  was  instantly  angry  with  herself 
for  having  done  it,  knowing  Haynes  was  the  only 
one  likely  to  follow  her.  But  Dart  was  not  so  far 
behind. 

"Who  was  that?"  he  asked,  unashamed.  "The 
Greek  runner?  Yes,  but  you  see  we  can  do  that 
now  by  wireless."  He  turned  to  Haynes.  "What 
do  you  think?  Which  side  are  you  on,  training  or 
over-training?" 

Haynes  answered  in  a  crisp  tone  Evie  had  not 
heard  from  him. 

"I've  been  there.  I  went  over  to  Cambridge  with 
the  crew,  and  I've  run  in  two  Marathons.  I  don't 
suppose  it  hurt  me.  I  didn't  care  then  whether  it 
did  or  not." 

Then  why,  Evie's  mind  prompted,  if  you've  lived 
such  things  as  boat-races  and  Marathons,  have  I 
been  tugging  after  you  on  this  trail  of  platitude? 
Why  not  have  come  into  my  open  field  and  played 
my  games  with  me? 

Mrs.  Dart  lashed  her  own  flagging  energies  and 
began  upon  the  Greeks,  but  really  flitting  along  the 
path  where  Browning's  chariot-wheels  had  rolled 
and  celebrating  the  wonder  of  running  to  announce 
a  victory.  Here,  to  her  surprise,  Dart,  who  in 
their  old  days  had  always  lingered  in  a  background 
of  acquiescence,  took  her  up  and  set  her  down  again. 


FATHER  387 

He  knew,  it  came  out,  something  more  about  the 
Greeks  than  she  did,  though  it  only  appeared  by 
implication.  He  was  dwelling  on  their  reverence 
for  proportion  and  the  mean,  the  "nothing  too 
much."  It  was  one  thing,  he  said,  to  run  over  hill 
and  dale,  "like  a  stubble  the  fire  burned  through," 
to  carry  the  news  of  victory,  and  even  drop  in  the 
market-place.  It  was  another  thing  to  pander  to 
the  lust  for  a  game  among  a  people  who  had  lost 
sight  of  the  nothing  too  much — indeed,  had  never 
seen  it  at  all,  and  didn't  suspect  it  of  existing.  They 
wanted  everything  too  much — money,  "go,"  the 
rattle  of  the  wheels  of  power. 

It  was  Evie  who  suggested  that  they  should  turn 
about.  Mother,  she  said,  was  going  to  speak  to 
morrow.  She'd  be  tired.  Dart  looked  at  his  watch 
and  begged  Evelyn's  pardon,  in  a  tone  of  honest 
concern.  He'd  "no  idea  it  was  so  late." 

The  next  day  it  seemed  to  come  about  naturally 
for  them  to  fall  into  an  ease  of  intimate  relation. 
The  three  speakers  appeared  at  one  another's  lec 
tures,  and  Evie  went  to  all.  As  to  the  weather,  it 
was  a  season  of  miraculous  calm,  and  every  night 
they  rowed  on  the  gentlest  of  seas.  The  Esoterics 
looked  on,  and,  by  virtue  of  their  training,  smiled  in 
a  recognition  that  the  Darts  had  vaulted  to  a  ground 
enviably  high.  The  outer  circle  frankly  wondered 
what  was  going  to  happen.  For  Evelyn  there  were 
a  good  many  surprises,  chiefly  concerned  with  Dart. 
Once  she  had  analyzed,  defined,  and  bounded  him 
with  what  seemed  to  her  a  perfect  adequacy.  Now, 


288  FATHER 

from  no  resistance  of  his  own,  but  chiefly  out  of  his 
reaction  on  her,  he  seemed  to  defy  such  processes. 
He  was  a  personage,  and  he  loomed  large.  He  had 
outlines,  resistances,  and  their  firmness  made  her 
feel  her  own  processes  somewhat  vague.  She  had 
always  floated  on  the  surface  of  things,  and  it  had 
seemed  charming  to  float.  But  now  suddenly,  in 
a  queer  way,  she  felt  slatternly,  as  if  she  were  wan 
dering  about  the  house  of  life,  not  ordering  it.  It 
was  Dart  who  made  the  pivot  of  their  group.  She 
saw  him  sometimes  in  a  morning  when  she  was 
dictating  to  Evie,  or  trying  a  sequence  of  thought 
on  her,  walking  with  Haynes  in  free  but,  as  she  knew 
from  snatches  she  caught,  perfectly  commonplace 
talk. 

Evie  followed  her  father  about  in  a  silent,  frank 
devotion  Mrs.  Dart  dared  not  question  lest  she 
evoke  some  comment  she  might  find  it  hard  to 
bear.  Now  that  Evie  had  set  foot  inside  her 
mother's  groundwork  of  motive,  Mrs.  Dart  feared 
her  to  an  extent  that  almost  made  her  seem  to 
herself  to  be  skulking.  She  could  not  bear  to 
know  how  she  looked  to  Evie  in  this  light  of  ap 
preciation  thrown  about  "father" — who  was  no  less 
father  for  being  called  by  no  definite  name.  At  a 
somewhat  earlier  date  in  life,  Mrs.  Dart  would  have 
analyzed  this  state  of  things  to  exhaustion.  Now 
she  felt  herself  too  tired.  The  gusto  of  analysis  had 
gone.  One  thing  she  did  feel:  that  Dart,  however 
solid  a  corner-stone  he  had  become  in  their  present 
edifice,  was  not  rescuing  Evie,  at  least  in  any  obvious 


FATHER  S89 

fashion.  Evie  herself  was  less  alone  with  Haynes 
because  she  inclined  to  be  with  father;  but  about 
any  inclination  she  might  have  felt,  she  kept  a  per 
fect  silence.  She  seemed  to  be  growing,  in  some  hid 
den,  normal  way,  like  a  plant  increasing  in  beauty's 
leafage  by  night  and  astonishing  the  beholder  who 
finds  it  in  the  morning.  If  she  was  feeling  emotion, 
she  didn't  show  it.  She  simply  lived  a  light-footed, 
gay- voiced  life,  and  slept  and  ate  her  fill.  Was  it 
because  Evie  was  in  love?  Evelyn  tried  to  remem 
ber  how  it  had  been  when  she  was  in  love  with  Dart; 
but  the  year  was  hazy.  It  seemed  to  have  been  an 
unrest,  never,  to  her  mind,  even  promising  peace, 
but  rather  a  future  of  transcending  emotion,  always 
to  be  and  never  there. 

Dart  finished  his  lectures  and  still  he  stayed.  Mrs. 
Dart,  in  a  grave  approval,  thought  he  had  developed 
sufficiently  to  appreciate  the  place. 

It  was  at  last  the  night  before  Richard's  going, 
and  that  could  not  be  deferred,  because  he  had 
lectures  at  a  summer  school.  Mrs.  Dart,  a  little 
excited,  rather  tired  now  that  the  battle  had  been 
so  far  fought  out,  and  he  had  not  yet  proposed  to 
Evie,  felt  a  drop  in  temperature.  Things  seemed 
no  longer  tragic  or  romantic;  they  looked  common 
place  and  also  pleasant,  as  if  she  and  Dart  together 
had  succeeded  in  protecting  their  daughter  from  a 
peril,  and  now  the  peril  was  past. 

"He's  going  in  the  morning,"  she  said  to  Dart,  as 
he  appeared  at  the  cottage  where  she  had  been 
lodged.  "Why,"  she  said  then,  "you're  tired?" 


£90  FATHER 

"No,"  said  Dart,  while  his  voice  denied  it,  "I 
guess  not." 

He  mounted  the  veranda  steps,  and  she  left  her 
chair  and  took  another,  to  give  him  the  bigger  one. 
His  whole  face  showed  a  droop  of  flaccid  muscles 
and  his  eyes  looked  the  pathos  of  lonely  middle 
age.  Evelyn,  whether  from  the  loosed  tension  of 
the  moment  or  some  pleasure  she  had  in  seeing  him, 
broke  out  jubilantly: 

"Perhaps  he  didn't  want  her,  after  all!" 

"Oh,  yes,  he  did,"  said  Dart,  smoking  quietly. 
"He  said  so." 

"He  said  so?  He  told  you  about  it?  He  asked 
you  for  Evie?" 

Her  voice  rose  in  an  incredulous  crescendo. 

"Practically.     Said  he  wanted  to  marry  her." 

"Really?  So  that  was  your  chance,  wasn't  it?" 
Evelyn  almost  stroked  him  now,  in  her  exultancy. 
"How  did  you  put  it?  What  did  you  say?" 

Dart  seemed  to  be  absorbed  in  making  a  smoke 
wreath,  but  he  gave  it  up  and  threw  his  cigar  into  a 
patch  of  jewel-weed. 

"Why,"  said  he,  "I  don't  exactly  know.  I  asked 
him  what  his  prospects  were.  That  was  what  it 
amounted  to." 

This  didn't  seem  at  all  like  the  high  challenges 
Evelyn  had  seen  an  opening  for. 

"His  prospects  are  good  enough,"  she  said,  "if 
you  mean  money.  He  simply  rakes  it  in.  He  can 
get  an  engagement  as  easy  as  turn  his  hand  over, 
and  they  pay  him  astounding  rates." 


FATHER  291 

"Well,"  said  Dart,  "he  doesn't  care  for  the  busi 
ness.  He'd  like  to  leave  it.  If  he  could  get  Evie, 
he  would." 

"Leave it? "she echoed.  "GetEvie?  Whatwould 
he  support  her  on?" 

"He'd  like  to  be  an  actor." 

She  felt  a  quick  distaste. 

"If  that's  not  like  him — just  my  idea  of  him! 
He's  simply  been  in  the  lecture  field  for  money,  and 
this  is  where  it's  led  him.  More  money,  more 
applause.  He's  the  image  of  a  matinee  idol.  That's 
what  would  suit  him,  too." 

"Oh,  he's  always  wanted  to  be  an  actor,"  said 
Dart,  still  with  the  air  of  needing  no  haste  to  prove 
his  points.  "But  he  didn't  make  good.  Thought 
he  would  have,  finally,  but  his  father  got  into  a 
financial  scrape,  and  he  began  this  to  help  him  out. 
Quick  returns.  Now  his  father's  on  his  feet,  and 
Haynes  wants  to  go  back  to  the  stage." 

"Well,  that  settles  it,"  she  breathed.  "Hasn't 
she  had  an  escape!" 

" Evie?  Why,  I  don't  know.  He's  a  good  fellow. 
It's  all  a  question  of  whether  Evie's  fond  of  him." 

Mrs.  Dart  suddenly  wished  she  could  tell  him  all 
she  knew  about  the  life  of  wandering. 

"I  should  think,"  said  she,  "you  would  be  the 
last  man  in  the  world  to  let  a  child" — she  was  about 
to  say,  "of  yours,"  but  the  words  failed  her — "to 
let  a  girl  like  Evie  marry  any  man  that  hasn't  a 
settled  home." 

"The  point  is,"  said  Dart,  as  if  he  had  thought  a 


292  FATHER 

great  deal  about  it  and  were  now  considering  only 
the  way  to  express  his  very  clear  conclusions — "the 
point  is,  to  marry  the  person  you've  made  up  your 
mind  you  want  to  marry." 

Evelyn  felt  her  face  grow  hot.     \ 

"Well,"  said  she,  "that's  one  way  to  come  to 
grief.  We  can't  let  Evie  come  to  grief.  We  don't 
want  any  marriage  for  her  unless  it's  the  perfect 
marriage." 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Dart,  quietly,  with  apparently 
no  thought  of  her  as  a  warm  factor  in  these  con 
clusions,  and  so  with  no  fear  of  hurting  her,  "there 
isn't  any  perfect  marriage,  so  to  speak." 

Evelyn's  heart  gave  a  little  jump,  with  the  result 
of  something  like  a  sob  from  her  lips. 

"What's  that?"  said  Dart,  starting  and  turning 
toward  her.  "Anything  the  matter?" 

"No,"  said  she.  But  she  wanted  to  go  back  to 
the  question  of  the  perfect  marriage.  It  had  been 
one  of  her  texts.  She  had  believed  in  it,  preached 
it:  the  fulfilled  relation,  the  eternal  mate.  "What 
makes  you  say  there  are  no  perfect  marriages?"  she 
faltered. 

"Oh,  that  was  generally  speaking,"  said  Dart, 
cheerfully.  "Of  course  there  are  happy  marriages, 
happy  as  possible.  You  can't  imagine  them  any 
better.  But  I  mean,  in  matters  of  that  kind  you've 
got  to  go  it  blind.  In  that  sense,  I  suppose  a  per 
son's  your  destiny  and  you  call  him  so.  Your  fate. 
That's  the  word,  isn't  it? — your  fate?  You've  got 
to  plunge  in  and  take  your  experience,  unless  you 


FATHER  398 

grab  at  illicit  experiences,  and  that's  outside  the 
question.     Don't  like  'em.    Don't  like  to  talk  about 


'em." 


"But,"  said  Evelyn,  groping  after  him  and  not  in 
the  least  seeing  whether  the  path  led  high  or  low  or 
across  the  plain  of  man's  peculiar  reasoning,  "would 
n't  you  guide  anyone's  choice?  The  case  of  Evie 
now.  Do  you  want  Evie  to  plunge  in  and  go  it 
blind?" 

"No,  oh,  no,"  said  Dart,  "not  so  far  as  essentials 
go.  If  a  man's  vicious — or  lazy — or,  oh,  any  dozen 
things.  But  Haynes  is  a  good  fellow.  He  hasn't  a 
vice — except  he  doesn't  smoke!  And  if  he  can  sup 
port  her,  she's  a  right  to  try  him." 

"But  you  can't  try,"  Evelyn  began,  and  then 
stopped,  her  face  hot  in  the  dark.  It  occurred  to 
her  that  she  had  tried  and  given  the  experiment  up. 
"He's  nomadic,"  she  said,  weakly.  "He  can't  help 
wandering,  and  she's  got  to  follow  him  or  throw  him 


over." 


"Then,"  said  Dart,  quietly,  as  if  he  had  thought 
these  things  out,  "let  her  follow  him  if  she  cares 
about  him  enough;  or  if  she  doesn't,  let  her  give 
him  up." 

"But  that—"  She  wanted  to  tell  him  what  she 
seemed  to  have  discovered  within  a  year:  that  it  was 
so  arid  and  unsatisfied  a  way. 

"Nice  to  talk  to  you,  Evelyn,"  said  Dart  cosily. 
"I  haven't  talked  to  anybody  about  these  things  for 
years  and  years.  You  can't,  you  know.  But  how 
I  feel  about  marriage  is  this.  It  isn't  the  most 


294  FATHER 

important  thing  in  the  world.  The  books  make  it 
so,  but  it  isn't." 

Her  emotion  seemed  to  mount  to  her  head  and 
start  sounds  to  buzzing  there.  What  she  felt  hurt 
her  like  an  extreme  mortification. 

"What  is?"  she  managed.  "What  is  the  most 
important  thing?" 

"Depends  on  the  person.  Sometimes  it's  one 
thing,  sometimes  another." 

"But  love!"  she  said,  more  boldly. 

"Well,  there  are  different  kinds  of  love,"  said 
Dart.  "There's  a  diffusive  sort  we  call  kindness. 
That's  what  we  seem  to  come  to  in  the  end.  But 
there  are  some  other  brands,  mighty  good  ones,  I 
tell  you.  I've  set  up  a  pretty  good  article  for  Evie, 
these  weeks.  I'm  fond  of  Evie." 

Evelyn  seemed  to  herself  to  be  the  prey  of  all  the 
depleting  foes  of  life,  the  things  that  make  a  woman 
pallid  and  old  and  of  no  account.  She  was  also 
suddenly  angry.  She  put  up  her  head  a  little. 

"I'm  glad  you're  fond  of  Evie,"  she  said.  "But 
I  can't  help  wishing  it  made  you  a  little  more  critical 
of  wandering  young  men." 

"I  am  critical,"  he  protested.  "Haynes  isn't 
just  the  ticket,  but  he'll  do.  He'll  do  mighty  well. 
Why,  look  here,  Evelyn."  He  was  growing  more 
and  more  confidential,  and,  in  spite  of  her  soreness, 
it  was  a  manner  she  liked.  "You  mustn't  cry  down 
anything  that  brings  color  into  anybody's  life. 
There's  precious  little  chance  for  it  after  thirty,  and 
by  and  by  there  isn't  any  at  all  unless  you  splash  it 


FATHER  £95 

on  somehow  yourself — and  that's  no  good.  But 
when  you're  as  old  as  I  am,  you  look  back  and  you 
see  what  color  there  was,  and  it's  dear  to  you — by 
George!  it's  dear." 

"But  what  could  there  have  been?"  she  was 
asking  passionately,  out  of  her  mortification.  "Who 
gave  it  to  you?  I  didn't.  I  was  always — making  a 
fuss." 

She  laughed  a  little  there,  piteously,  hoping  he 
could  laugh  with  her  and  paint  her  poor  self  a  little 
less  tawdry  in  her  eyes. 

But  he  didn't  laugh.  He  turned  toward  her  and 
answered,  in  a  quick,  grave  tone: 

"Why,  yes,  Evelyn,  you  gave  me  all  the  color  I've 
ever  had.  Didn't  you  know  that?" 

She  shook  her  head.  She  was  crying,  and  she 
hoped  he  didn't  know  it.  The  time  had  been  when 
every  tear  she  shed  she  had  wished  to  exhibit  to  him 
like  a  gem  for  which  he'd  got  to  pay. 

"But  I  wasn't,"  she  said,  "I  wasn't — satisfac 
tory." 

"Why,  nobody's  satisfactory,"  said  Dart  gently, 
"when  they're  living  together.  Didn't  you  know 
that,  either?  But  while  they're  living  together 
the  big  thing  goes  on — life — that's  the  big  thing, 
and  they've  had  it  together,  and  it's  mighty  well 
worth  while." 

She  saw  a  good  many  things  in  one  of  the  pano 
ramic  flashes  that  came  to  her  quick  mind:  how  a 
woman  could  live  with  a  man  and  serve  him  and 
open  gates  to  him  all  the  time,  even  gates  to  the 


296  FATHER 

daily  sunset  or  bread  at  breakfast.  And  so  rhyth 
mic  would  be  the  weaving  of  her  homely  tender 
nesses  about  him  that  he  would  be  caught  in  the 
web  of  them,  and  they  would  make  his  chrysalis, 
perhaps,  from  which  he  came  out  winged.  A  good 
man  like  this — there  seemed  no  limit  to  the  content 
you  might  find  with  John  Symonds  Dart. 

"You  mustn't  ever  forget  that,  Evelyn,"  he  was 
saying  gravely.  "I  never  do.  You  see  you  meant 
a  lot  to  me — and  those  things  don't  stop." 

"I  wish,"  she  said,  in  an  irrepressible  longing  for 
some  sweet-smelling  life  that,  it  seemed  to  her  now, 
her  senses  had  been  not  too  fine  but  too  crude  to 
catch — "I  wish  it  hadn't  stopped." 

It  was  not  the  words.  It  was  something  in  her 
voice,  not  the  thrill  that  made  the  audiences  "sit 
up,"  but  the  one  note  of  naked  need  that  never  is 
mistaken.  John  Dart  waited  after  it  got  hold  of 
him  and  shook  it  off,  as  if  it  had  been  a  spell,  and 
gave  himself  time  to  decide  what  he  wanted  for  her. 

"You  don't  mean,"  he  said,  "you'd  be  willing  to 
come  back?  " 

Evelyn,  on  her  part,  did  not  balance  either  her 
desires  or  his  deserts.  She  answered  at  once,  in 
words  that  seemed  to  her  inevitable: 

"You  wouldn't  take  me,  would  you?" 

"Why,"  said  he,  "there  hasn't  been  a  minute 
since  you  and  Evie  went — " 

He  put  his  hand  under  her  chin,  turned  her  face 
toward  him,  and  kissed  her.  It  was  the  honest 
marital  kiss  she  remembered,  but  it  had  a  welcome 


FATHER  297 

flavor:  perhaps  of  loyalties  mysteriously  alive. 
Evelyn,  making  her  own  response  to  it,  thought 
his  face  was  wet  with  tears  that  were  not  all  hers. 

"Come,"  said  he,  "let's  walk  a  little.  I  want  to 
get  my  arm  round  my  girl." 

They  walked  up  and  down  the  veranda  as  youth 
was  walking  on  the  beach,  and  when  they  stopped 
by  the  rail  to  note  the  moon's  punctual  coming  and 
Dart  kissed  her  again,  the  general  sense  of  romantic 
love,  even  in  the  marital  kiss,  waked  Evelyn  to  the 
peril  she  had  but  laid  aside. 

"Oh,"  said  she,  "where's  Evie?" 

"Rowing,"  he  told  her  cheerfully.  "Haynes 
asked  me  if  they  could  go,  and  he  could  try  his 
chances.  I  said  he  could." 

"You've  let  them  go — they're  out  there — in  the 
moonlight!"  she  struggled  confusedly  out  of  her 
dream-like  sense  of  her  own  timid  incursion  into 
the  rights  of  moon  ways  and  summer  nights. 

"He's  got  to  have  his  chance,"  said  Dart.  His 
arm  brought  her  a  little  nearer.  "Evie's  got  to 
have  hers.  We've  had  ours." 

Even  then  he  wondered  whether  she  would  with 
stand  him,  but  to  his  deep  amazement  she  answered: 

"  Well !    You  know  best." 

"Oh,  there  they  are,"  said  he.  A  white  gleam 
was  in  the  pathway.  "Want  me  to  stop  hugging 
you  till  Evie  gets  used  to  the  notion?  She  may  not 
fancy  an  elderly  dad  hanging  round,  trying  to  cut 
her  out." 

Evelyn  withdrew  from  him  a  pace. 


298  FATHER 

"It's  EVie,"  she  said,  "but  she's  alone." 

Evie  came  up  the  steps  at  a  run. 

"You  here,  folks?"  she  called.  "That  you?" 
She  was  before  them  almost  with  the  words.  "I 
want  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  in  the  haste  of  pushing  a 
difficult  and  considered  speech — "I  want  to  tell 
you  quick." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Evelyn,  in  misery,  "we  know, 
dear." 

"No,  you  don't,"  said  Evie;  "you  can't.  I've 
been  making  up  my  mind  for  two  weeks,  but  I 
didn't  do  it  till  to-night.  Mother,  it'll  be  awful  to 
leave  you,  but  I've  decided  I've  got  to  spend  part  of 
every  year  with  father.  Maybe  you  won't  take  me, 
father,  but  I  guess  you'll  have  to,  for  a  while.  I 
kind  of  need  it." 

Dart  lifted  both  hands  toward  her  and  then 
dropped  them.  If  there  were  some  mysterious  hurt 
to  his  wife  in  this,  he  wanted  to  wait  until  she'd  taken 
the  first  step. 

"What  does  he  say  about  it?"  Evelyn  asked 
jealously. 

"Dick  Haynes?  I  haven't  asked  him.  I've 
refused  him.  You  might  as  well  know  it,  so  we 
needn't  talk  about  it  ever  any  more." 

Evelyn  had  one  of  her  exuberant  thankfulnesses. 

"O  Evie,  I  was  so  afraid  you'd  like  him.  You 
didn't,  did  you?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  Evie,  in  a  species  of  reconsider 
ing.  "I  didn't  like  him.  Maybe  I  did  at  first, 
but  not  after  I  knew  father.  Father's  great!" 


NEMESIS 

FOR  a  long  time,  though  he  had  written  of  other 
things — and  indeed  this  had  hardly  tempted  him, 
being  too  colossal  for  his  type  of  fiction — he  had 
thought  absorbedly  of  Nemesis.  He  was  Alan 
Scarsdale,  now  over  forty,  who  had  reached  an  ex 
alted  plane  of  novel-writing  where  he  found  himself 
grouped  with  three  or  four  preeminent  men  of  letters, 
and  only  he  could  have  told  whether  he  hoped 
to  quit  even  their  austere  company  and  climb  on, 
to  the  apex  of  renown.  When  he  began  to  think 
about  Nemesis  with  a  personal  and  vital  receptive- 
ness,  all  the  events  of  his  life  seemed  to  have  crowded 
to  a  focus,  and  he  could  trace  back  the  lines  from  their 
meeting-point  to  the  causes  of  things,  and  so  learn, 
in  a  fascination  even  greater  than  the  glamour  of 
early  love,  the  roads  that  led  to  rewards  and  punish 
ment.  The  law  itself  he  adored  for  its  delicate 
precision  and  iron  strength.  And  after  he  had 
followed  its  course  as  it  affected  his  life  and  those  im 
mediate  to  him,  it  occurred  to  him  that,  since  Nem 
esis  always  paid  in  kind,  it  might  be  possible,  by 
noting  the  transgression,  to  guard  against  penalty. 

This  was  about  the  time  that  his  wife,  who  was  of 
an  abnormally  sensitive  nature,  degenerating  through 
sheer  laxness  of  will  into  physical  cowardice,  failed 
to  answer  her  mother's  summons  to  join  her  abroad. 
The  mother,  too,  was  a  victim  of  fancies  and  a 

299 


300  NEMESIS 

permanent  malaise  of  living.  She  had  traveled  for 
years  in  search  of  serenity  and  to  avoid  herself,  and 
now  she  wrote  her  daughter  that  she  was  sure  the 
end  was  near.  Would  Mildred  come?  Mildred 
had  no  reason  to  believe  the  crisis  was  more  acute 
than  it  had  been  for  years.  Besides,  she  too  was 
having  crises  of  her  own;  so  she  wrote  comforting 
letters  from  week  to  week  and  delayed  her  going. 
Then  the  mother,  to  Mildred's  grief  and  ingenuous 
surprise,  really  did  fulfil  what  seemed  only  an  hys 
terical  threat,  really  did  die;  and  from  her  journal, 
sent  home  with  other  effects,  it  was  evident  that  she 
had  died  feeling  herself  deserted.  Alan,  who  had 
to  encounter  the  pathetic  survival  and  classifying 
of  the  things  she  had  owned  and  lived  with,  read  the 
journal  and  took  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of 
keeping  it  from  his  wife.  It  would,  he  knew,  bring 
down  upon  her  a  crushing  anguish.  She  had  not 
meant  to  desert  the  dying  woman,  but  her  apathy 
and  delay  had  compassed  that  effect;  and  Nemesis, 
he  knew,  would  not  consider  extenuating  circum 
stances.  It  was  then  that  he  began  to  seek  about 
for  means  to  evade  the  penalty.  He  reasoned  that, 
if  you  knew  what  sin  you  had  committed,  you  might 
possibly  effect  some  compensating  balance,  and  in 
voke  Nemesis  on  the  side  of  reward,  not  of  punish 
ment.  You  might  equalize  the  penalty  by  some  ade 
quate  good.  Mildred,  he  believed,  had,  however 
innocently,  deserted  her  mother.  Therefore  Mildred 
would,  probably  in  the  last  stages  of  her  own  life, 
find  herself  deserted,  or  at  least  feel  herself  so.  Not 


NEMESIS  301 

even  Nemesis  could  help  it,  unless  indeed  the  scale 
could  be  made  to  tip  the  other  way,  perhaps  by 
some  inconceivable  sacrifice  of  his  own. 

One  afternoon,  as  he  walked  home  by  the  city 
streets,  glamourously  beautiful  under  lights  through 
a  falling  snow,  he  was  thinking  of  these  things  and  his 
hope  of  outwitting  destiny,  his  mind  all  a  softness  of 
compassion  over  Mildred  and  her  helplessness  in  the 
face  of  these  big  powers.  She  had  never  ceased  to 
pull  at  his  heart  through  her  beauty  and  inability 
to  defend  herself  from  the  forces  she  innocently  in 
voked.  He  let  himself  in,  and  ran  upstairs  to  her 
sitting-room,  where  he  knew  exactly  how  he  should 
find  her,  in  a  languor  of  endurance  perpetually 
though  innocently  appealing  to  him.  But  the  scene 
was  startlingly  of  another  sort.  The  room  had  lost 
its  air  of  cloistered  defense.  The  lights  were  not 
low;  they  were  brilliant  within  their  amber  shades 
and  they  had  paled  the  fire  shine  by  contrast. 
Mildred  herself  was  not  on  her  couch,  a  harmony  in 
lace  and  the  delicate  bloom  of  silk;  she  was  pacing 
back  and  forth  through  the  room.  There  was  even 
a  flush  on  her  cheeks,  and  the  movement  with  which 
she  turned  to  him  was  girlish  and  abrupt.  He  was 
used,  when  he  came  in,  to  recalling  her  from  some 
elusive,  wistful  atmosphere  of  her  own,  and  even 
hesitatingly  opening  before  her  the  sheaf  of  news  he 
might  have  gathered.  But  now  she  had  her  own 
news  to  proffer. 

"Alan,"  said  she,  in  a  tone  he  had  not  heard  from 
her  for  years,  "Annette  has  come,  little  Annette." 


302  NEMESIS 

For  the  moment  he  did  not  remember  who  An 
nette  was.  Then  it  came  to  him.  Annette  was  a 
younger  cousin  of  Mildred's,  many  times  removed. 
She  had  visited  them  years  ago  in  her  short-dress 
and  pig-tail  stage,  an  awkward  girl  with  a  talent  for 
the  piano  and  open-eyed  wonder  over  the  junketings 
they  gave  her:  for  she  lived  in  an  obscure  town  and 
she  was  poor. 

"Of  course,"  said  he,  at  a  loss  over  the  significance 
of  the  arrival,  "Annette." 

Meanwhile  he  was  persuading  his  wife  to  her  sofa, 
and  she  allowed  herself  to  be  seated  there  and  drew 
him  down  beside  her. 

"Annette,"  she  went  on,  with  eager  interest,  "has 
come  to  study  the  piano.  She  has  saved  a  little 
money — earned  it,  dear  child;  I  wouldn't  ask  her 
how — some  grubby  drudgery — her  poor  little  hands! 
— they're  so  ill-kept! — and  she's  taken  a  room  at  the 
woman's  exchange,  and  just  called  here  to  say  how- 
d'ye-do." 

"Yes,"  said  Alan,  "I  see." 

"Alan,"  said  his  wife,  "she's  a  dear,  a  perfect  dear. 
And  it  came  over  me  while  she  sat  telling  her  little 
story — she's  tremendously  happy,  you  must  know, 
in  her  tiny  room  with  a  chance  to  practise  at  some 
conservatory — it  came  over  me  if  we  had  had  a 
daughter  she  might  have  been  as  old  as  Annette." 

Alan  gave  her  a  little  silent  hug.  That  was  it, 
then.  She  had  not  for  years  spoken  of  children. 
He  thought  she  had  given  up  wanting  them.  And 
perhaps  she  had ;  but  here  was  the  warm  living  child, 


NEMESIS  SOS 

and  the  vision  had  beguiled  her.  She  was  going  on: 
"Maybe  I  shouldn't  have  thought  of  it  if  she  had 
been  just  like  other  girls — one  sees  so  many — ill- 
mannered,  athletic  things ! — but  she  was  so  pathetic, 
somehow,  with  her  poor  little  clothes  and  her  rough 
little  hands!  Alan,  could  she  come  here  and  live?" 

Alan  was  amazed.  He  had  offered  her  dogs  and 
horses  and  conservatories  and  trips  about  the  world, 
and  a  guarded  journey  to  see  her  mother  who  was 
dying,  and  she  had  waved  them  all  aside.  But  per 
haps  child-hunger  had  all  the  time  been  growing  up 
in  her,  and  now  it  was  devouring  her.  He  was  silent 
so  long  that  she  broke  in  upon  him  passionately: 

"I  know.  I  understand.  You  couldn't  endure  a 
piano-playing  girl.  Though  she  could  practise  in 
the  billiard-room.  Still,  it  is  too  much  to  expect." 

"Dear  girl,"  he  said,  "I  should  like  nothing 
better." 

" Really?  "  She  threw  herself  upon  him  in  a  frank 
abandon  of  delight.  "When  could  she  come?" 

"To-night?" 

Then  they  both  laughed,  and  Mildred  owned  that 
to-morrow  would  do  perfectly.  Besides,  it  had  got 
to  be  broken  to  Annette.  Not  a  word  of  it  had  been 
hinted  during  the  call.  Would  he  say  the  word? 
Would  he  tell  her  through  the  telephone  that  she 
was  to  pack  to-night  and  be  ready  in  the  morning  by 
ten?  They'd  send  the  car.  Alan  was  used  to  ec 
centric  missions,  from  discharging  cooks  to  inter 
viewing  doctors  who  might  not,  eventually,  "suit" 
any  more  than  the  cook,  and  he  undertook  his  new 


304  NEMESIS 

task  cheerfully,  if  with  a  slight  inward  ruefulness. 
It  was  accomplished  before  Mildred  thought  of  giv 
ing  up  to  the  routine  of  massage  and  reading  that  led 
to  her  night's  sleep.  He  found  Annette,  through  the 
impersonal  medium  of  the  telephone,  a  docile,  rather 
surprised  but  acquiescent  person  with  a  charming 
voice.  And  next  morning,  after  learning  that  his 
wife  had  given  all  necessary  directions  for  her  com 
fort  when  she  should  arrive,  he  betook  himself  down 
town,  craftily  announcing  that  he  should  lunch  at  the 
club.  Mildred  offered  no  demur.  She  evidently 
agreed  with  him  that  she  could  sustain  the  advent 
of  Annette  unaided. 

Alan  not  only  lunched  at  the  club,  but  he  found  a 
crony  there  who  asked  him  to  motor  out  into  the 
country,  and,  after  telephoning  Mildred  and  finding 
her,  through  the  medium  of  the  maid,  promptly  in 
clined  to  spare  him,  he  accepted.  Really  he  was  a 
little  craven  about  Annette.  He  didn't  know  how  to 
meet  her  and  oversee  so  difficult  a  task  as  the  coali 
tion  with  Mildred,  and  he  decided  to  follow  out  this 
beginning  and  let  Mildred  manage  it  alone.  When 
he  did  get  home,  only  in  time  to  dress  for  dinner,  he 
found  his  wife's  door  closed.  The  nurse  stood  on  the 
landing.  Evidently  the  state  of  things  loomed  so 
portentous  that  she  wanted  the  dramatic  satisfac 
tion  of  presenting  it  to  him.  Mrs.  Scarsdale  was 
dressing.  She  was  coming  down  to  dinner. 

"Oh,"  said  Alan,  blankly.     "Oh,  yes,  thanks.     I 


see." 


But  he  didn't  see  at  all.    Mildred  hadn't  been 


NEMESIS  805 

equal  to  dinner  downstairs  for  a  very  long  time. 
She  always  had  a  tray  in  her  own  room,  and  some 
times  Alan,  in  the  excess  of  his  solicitude,  had  a  tray 
with  her. 

When  he  came  out  of  his  room  her  door  was  open, 
but  only  the  maid  was  there,  bringing  order  out  of 
the  chaos  of  dropped  finery.  A  sound  of  voices  rose 
from  below,  and  he  ran  down  to  find  his  wife  and 
Annette  waiting.  At  first  he  could  not  really  look 
at  Annette  with  any  appraising  glance,  the  change 
in  his  wife  so  challenged  him.  She  was  not,  it  is 
true,  in  conventional  evening  dress.  There  was  still 
the  suggestion  of  the  invalid  in  her  fluttering  robes, 
but  her  vividness,  almost  her  gaiety,  fitted  nothing 
but  the  end  of  day  when  the  exhilaration  of  the  night 
begins.  She  came  forward  to  him,  leading  Annette 
with  the  air  of  having  something  triumphantly 
splendid  to  display,  and  she  was  quite  unconscious 
that  for  the  moment  Alan  had  eyes  for  herself  alone. 

"Here  she  is,"  said  Mildred.  "See  if  you'd  re 
member  her." 

Of  course  he  made  flattering  disclaimer,  implying 
that  Annette  had  grown  into  something  too  rare  to 
be  recognized;  but  it  was  not  until  they  were  seated 
at  the  table  that  he  saw  her  really,  saw  her  with  his 
quick,  discerning  eyes  that  knew  how  to  get  at  the 
soul  under  betraying  physiognomies  and  actually 
call  it  good  or  ill.  And  this  girl  he  called  very  good 
indeed.  She  was  ingenuous,  he  decided,  honest,  full 
of  enthusiasm — palpably,  after  her  piano,  for  Mil 
dred — and  she  was  delightedly  overjoyed  and 


806  NEMESIS 

amazed  to  be  there.  She  was,  he  made  no  delay  in 
deciding,  a  plain  girl.  He  did  not  know  her  clothes 
were  her  worst  enemy.  Mildred  did,  and  had  al 
ready  schemed  out  combinations  of  line  and  color 
that  should  not  so  much  change  her  into  another 
sort  of  creature  as  bring  out  the  creature  that  was 
shyly  there.  They  talked  chiefly  of  music,  adapted 
to  her  desires  as  a  budding  student,  and  though  she 
proved  diffident  she  was  sufficiently  receptive. 
After  dinner  she  offered  to  play  to  them,  and  Alan 
was  on  the  point  of  refusing.  Mildred  had  had 
enough,  he  thought;  she  would  be  exhausted.  But, 
on  the  contrary,  Mildred  desired  nothing  more  than 
to  hear  Annette  play,  and  they  had  an  hour  of  con 
scientious  "pieces"  and  then  erratic,  wild,  moving 
improvisations.  The  little  hard- worked  hands  were 
flexible.  They  had  a  witchery  of  their  own,  even  if 
one  couldn't  call  it  an  accomplished  technique. 
Alan  was  frankly  moved  and  delighted.  He  told 
the  girl  so  when  she  came  away  from  the  piano  and 
went,  at  once  a  commonplace  creature,  devoid  of 
her  gift,  to  sit  beside  Mildred  and  regard  her  with 
adoring  eyes — that  she  was  an  artist.  She'd  do. 
She  flushed  pink  at  his  praise,  but  still  looked  at 
Mildred  who  was  evidently  the  center  of  her  con 
siderations. 

Mildred  rose. 

"Come,"  she  said.  "We  musn't  tire  you  out. 
Is  it  lesson  day  to-morrow?  I  thought  so.  Go  to 
bed,  child.  Sleep  well." 

Annette,  after  a  timid  handshake  and  the  implica- 


NEMESIS  307 

tion  that  she  could  be  kissed  if  it  were  agreeable,  got 
out  of  the  room  as  gracefully,  Alan  decided,  as  could 
be  expected  from  a  person  with  that  cut  of  skirt. 
And  then,  a  soft  little  rustle  and  Mildred  was  at  his 
side. 

"Don't  you  see,"  she  said  ecstatically,  "what  can 
be  made  of  her?" 

"She's  got  a  ripping  touch,"  said  he,  "and  a  style 
quite  her  own.  Some  day  she'll  make  'em  sit  up. 
If  she  works — and  I  guess  she'll  work." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Mildred  softly,  in  a  triumphant 
staccato  to  herself.  "I  see  what  can  be  made  of 
her." 

It  was  not  a  month  before  Alan,  too,  saw,  and  it 
was  not  music  alone  that  was  being  made.  Annette 
herself  was  faithful  to  the  music.  She  wouldn't  have 
to  be  led  or  spurred.  But  while  she  marched  pa 
tiently  or  ran  with  delight  along  her  difficult  road, 
Mildred  was,  by  the  most  delicate  stages,  transform 
ing  her  from  a  dowdy  genius  into  a  beauty.  Alan, 
when  he  saw  her  one  night  running  down  to  dinner  in 
a  creation  of  cloudy  chiffon  with  her  wonderful  hair 
artfully  dressed,  came  suddenly  awake  to  it  all. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  said  to  Mildred  under  his 
breath.  "The  girl's  a  beauty ! " 

Mildred  gave  a  low  little  laugh  of  satisfied  delight. 

"  Yes,"  she  said.     "  I  knew  it  at  once." 

And  as  Annette  came  up  to  them,  smiling  and 
glowing  in  the  not  yet  recognized  miracle  of  the 
fostering  house  and  their  outspoken  praises,  she  took 
her  hand  and  for  the  first  time  called  her  daughter. 


308  NEMESIS 

It  was  that  night  that  Alan,  sitting  up  alone  in  his 
study,  began  to  think  again  about  the  household 
Nemesis.  Annette  was,  he  saw,  after  these  weeks  of 
proof,  the  object  of  Mildred's  thwarted  mother  love. 
It  had  risen  up  in  her,  this  defeated  passion,  a  thou 
sand  times  stronger  than  if  she  had  borne  a  child  and 
reared  it  to  Annette's  age.  Nature  had  this  way,  he 
knew,  of  coming  back  upon  you.  Hold  her  off,  if  you 
dare,  while  you  are  young  and  she  is  suing  you  to  pay 
your  tribute;  she  may  not  revenge  herself  at  the 
time,  but  in  your  later  years,  when  you  have  less 
strength  to  gainsay  her,  she  hurls  herself  back  on  you 
with  the  same  old  arguments,  futile  now,  but  at  last 
irresistible,  and  in  all  probability  crushes  you. 
Mildred,  having  practically  deserted  her  own  mother, 
it  was  through  this  child,  the  more  deeply  loved  be 
cause  so  lately  found,  that  Nemesis  would  have  at 
her.  Mildred  in  her  turn  would  be  deserted,  and 
by  the  child.  And  being  definitely  convinced  of 
that,  he  set  himself  to  thwarting  Nemesis.  Annette 
should  be  made  so  happy  with  them  that  not  even 
her  art  should  coax  her  from  them.  Her  possible 
marriage  he  did  not  take  into  account.  She  was 
not  the  sort  of  girl,  he  concluded,  to  think  of  it 
prematurely,  and  when  it  came  he  could  treat  it  as 
the  emergency  it  was,  and  grapple  with  it  according 
to  its  strength  and  his.  He  was  always  meeting 
emergencies  in  this  varied  defense  of  Mildred,  and 
he  always  found  his  nerve  and  spirits  rising  for  the 
encounter.  Perhaps,  after  all,  he  sometimes  hu 
morously  thought,  he  actually  enjoyed  bis  daily 


NEMESIS  809 

skirmishing;  and  now,  if  there  were  anything  of  the 
wizard  left  in  him,  he  would  give  himself  to  the  task 
of  charming  the  child  and  chaining  her  with  fairy 
bonds  to  Mildred's  fireside. 

He  had  been  leaving  her  and  Mildred  to  their 
evening  talks  alone,  while  he  took  up  an  old  habit  of 
writing  by  night;  but  now  he  stayed  with  them  after 
dinner  and  set  himself  to  make  the  pace  a  gay  one, 
such  as  suited  the  steps  of  youth.  When  Mildred 
was  palpably  tired — for  she  did  lag  sometimes  in  the 
pace — he  read  aloud  to  them.  He  even  read  one  of 
his  own  manuscripts,  a  novel  nearly  ready  for  the 
printer,  and,  seeing  Annette  absorbed  and  excited 
by  finding  herself  so  near  the  mysterious  process  of 
making  books,  he  went  a  step  further  and  talked  to 
her  about  his  art.  The  most  reserved  of  workmen, 
he  tossed  material  and  processes  into  the  hopper  with 
a  lavish  hand,  and  hoped  the  mill  was  at  least  grind 
ing  out  discomfiture  of  Nemesis.  And  he  got  unex 
pectedly  his  daily  reward.  He  was  opening  her 
mind  to  life  and  books — indeed  for  reasons  of  his 
own,  but  he  did  feel  the  fascination  of  her  response. 
She  was  an  impressionable  creature,  and,  to  what 
ever  result,  he  was  molding  her  and  she  was  charm 
ing  in  her  pliancy,  Mildred  adored  him  for  his 
goodness.  It  was  incredible,  she  felt,  that  he  should 
leave  his  own  intimate  house  of  life  where  he  dwelt 
with  this  art  and  where  she  herself  had  never  gained 
foothold  for  more  than  a  shy  minute,  to  walk  hand 
in  hand  with  a  little  raw  girl,  and  tell  the  fairy  tale 
of  what  was  in  the  house.  Perhaps  he  even  opened 


310  NEMESIS 

the  door  of  the  house  a  crack  big  enough  for  Annette 
to  squeeze  timidly  in. 

Before  the  winter  was  half  over  Mildred  had  asked 
him  to  take  Annette  to  hear  music.  She  must  have 
more  music  than  she  could  get  in  the  daytime,  more 
opera  than  the  matinees  would  give  her.  Would  he 
take  her?  Mildred,  though  she  was  stanchly  getting 
the  best  of  her  nerves  with  a  rapidity  that  amazed 
everybody,  still  shrank  from  the  impact  of  a  crowd. 
So  Alan  and  Annette,  truly  contrite  at  leaving  her, 
yet  absorbed  in  the  rush  and  go  of  it  all — she  in 
the  beautiful  game  of  life  and  he  in  outwitting 
Nemesis — would  hurry  off  together,  walking  usually, 
they  had  so  much  life  to  spare,  he  amazedly  young 
because  of  her  and  she  old  enough  through  her  gift 
and  her  understanding  of  his  to  be  the  readiest 
comrade. 

And  then  came  the  night  of  "Tristan."  They  had 
left  the  tumult  of  the  applauding  house  to  get  home 
quickly,  remorseful  over  Mildred  because  she  had 
not  shared  the  dream  and  wonder.  Alan  was  think 
ing  of  her  as  he  had  not  thought  in  these  last  long 
days  of  his  compassion  for  her,  and  of  love — love, 
and  Mildred  the  heart  of  it.  Annette  seemed  answer 
ing  his  unspoken  thought  when  she  said: 

"And  she  didn't  hear  it.  I  can't  bear  to  think  of 
that." 

Alan  made  no  answer.  The  car  was  running  fast; 
it  was  getting  him  home  to  her,  but  all  too  slowly. 

"Look!"  said  Annette.     "Oh,  look!" 

It  was  the  moon,  opulent,  splendid — absurd,  too, 


NEMESIS  811 

hanging  there  over  the  garish  city.  Alan  thought 
of  the  sea.  He  heard  breakers  and  smelt  the 
brine. 

"Oh,  I  wish—"  Annette  began. 

"What  do  you  wish?" 

"I  wish  we  were  on  a  road  going  down  to  the  sea." 

Alan  signaled  the  man  and  gave  an  order.  They 
turned  about,  eastward. 

"Where  are  we  going?"  asked  Annette. 

"Where  you  said,"  he  answered.     "To  the  sea." 

She  accepted  it.  Indeed,  with  their  turning,  an 
acquiescence  fell  upon  them,  an  abandonment  to  the 
dream.  And  what  was  the  dream?  Whatever  it 
was,  it  was  their  own  and  imperfectly  understood. 
They  ran  faster  through  a  whitening  world.  The 
moonlight  sifted  down.  They  were  in  a  bath  of 
light.  Neither  was  thinking  of  the  other.  They 
were  rushing,  it  seemed,  to  some  land  of  beauty 
greater  than  music,  greater  than  the  death  of  im 
mortal  lovers  long  ago.  Alan  had  often  called  Wag 
ner  the  most  immoral  of  pagan  forces  because  he 
released  in  you  untamed  desires  and  convinced  you, 
at  the  same  moment,  of  their  inalienable  rights. 
The  spell  was  upon  him,  a  perfume,  an  appeal.  He 
drifted  with  it  and  again  felt  young.  What  was  it  to 
Annette?  She  was  not  Annette.  She  was  the  atom 
that  vibrated  with  him,  also  an  atom,  in  the  world 
delirium.  Then  came  the  swerving  of  the  car,  the 
crash  and  overturn.  Alan,  shocked  out  of  his 
ecstasy,  dragged  up  out  of  it  by  ugly  fact,  knew  they 
were  in  for  it.  And  at  the  instant  he  felt  her  cold 


312  NEMESIS 

cheek  pressed  to  his  and  then  the  movement  of  her 
passionate  lips. 

"Are  you  hurt?"  she  was  sobbing.  "O  God!  are 
you  hurt?" 

"No,  no,"  he  said.     "They'll  get  us  out." 

Yet  he  doubted  it  and  who  they  were  going  to  be, 
on  a  lonely  road,  he  did  not  know.  But  presently 
it  was  evident  that  two  other  cars  had  stopped  and 
somebody,  strong  and  clever,  was  getting  them  out. 
In  perhaps  an  hour  they  were  standing  by  the  road 
side  and  the  chauffeur,  with  angry  futility,  was  in 
vestigating  his  disabled  car.  Alan  was  shaking, 
cursing  himself  inwardly,  in  an  angry  surprise,  for 
his  unstable  nerves.  Annette  there  beside  him 
seemed  to  him  the  stillest  creature  in  the  universe. 
He  took  her  hand.  It  yielded  to  him. 

"Come,"  he  said.  "We'll  go  back  by  train. 
There's  a  station  over  there." 

But  somebody  offered  to  take  them  back,  and  in 
the  dark  morning  they  entered  their  own  door. 
Alan  turned  to  look  at  her.  She  was  pale  and 
ravaged,  inconceivably  older.  That  circumstance 
could  have  shaped  so  tragic  a  mask  from  the  girl 
face  he  knew  was  incredible  to  him. 

"  You  are  hurt,"  he  said.     "  You're  hiding  it." 

"No."  She  was  looking  at  him  with  somber 
eyes.  "  We  mustn't  talk.  She'll  hear." 

At  the  same  instant  they  were  aware  that  Mildred 
was  on  the  landing,  looking  down  at  them.  She  was  in 
white.  Her  long  braids  of  hair  made  the  straight 
lines  of  her  gown  the  more  stark  and  saint-like. 


NEMESIS  SIS 

"Something  did  happen,"  she  called.  "I  knew 
it." 

Alan  ran  up  to  her.  Annette  followed  slowly. 
With  a  peremptory  little  push  he  turned  Mildred 
about  to  her  room. 

"Run  back  to  bed,"  he  said.  "I'll  tell  you  by 
and  by.  We  had  some  sort  of  an  overturn — I  don't 
know  what.  Anyway,  it  held  us  up.  But  here  we 
are." 

"But  where  were  you?"  Mildred  was  insisting. 
"It's  so  late." 

She  looked  over  her  shoulder  at  Annette,  but  Alan 
still  persuaded  her  along. 

"Trying  to  find  the  moon,"  said  he.  Then  he 
laughed,  and  the  laugh  had  an  angry  sound.  "Or 
the  sea,  or  something.  I  forget.  But  here  we  are. 
Say  good  night,  you  two.  No,  Mildred,  you're  not 
going  to  talk  to  her.  Why,  it's  morning.  Run 
along,  Annette." 

Mildred  yielded  to  him,  and  Annette  went  si 
lently  off  to  her  own  room. 

He  was  down  early.  He  had  had  a  short,  haunted 
sleep  and  it  had  done  him  no  good.  It  would  have 
been  better,  he  thought,  with  the  irritation  of  jaded 
nerves,  not  to  have  slept  at  all,  but  carried  on  the 
acquired  control  of  the  night  into  the  problematic 
day.  Before  he  had  finished  his  coffee,  Annette 
came  down.  She  walked  gravely,  her  girlish  light 
ness  gone.  More  than  that,  most  disturbingly,  she 
had  turned  into  a  plain  little  girl.  That  he  saw. 
He  did  not  see  also  that  she  had  assumed  the  dull 


314  NEMESIS 

disguise  of  the  clothes  she  had  worn  when  she  came 
into  what  she  called  their  fairy  house,  and  that  now 
again  their  uncouthness  tarnished  and  belied  her 
subtle  beauty.  They  took  their  coffee  together  and 
she  passed  indifferently  by  his  solicitude  over  her 
recovery  from  the  shock  of  the  night. 

"Could  we,"  she  said,  abruptly,  when  they  had 
finished,  "go  to  walk?" 

"Don't  you  want  to  practise?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  No.     I  want  to  see  you." 

He  got  up  to  close  the  door. 

"No,"  she  demurred,  "I  can't  say  it  in  the  house. 
I'll  get  my  hat." 

Presently  she  appeared  in  the  poor,  plain  hat  she 
had  trimmed  herself  before  she  came  to  town  to  seek 
her  fortune,  the  ill-fitting  jacket,  the  meager  little 
furs.  She  did  not  wait  for  him  to  open  the  door, 
but  opened  it  herself  and  stepped  out  hurriedly, 
turned  toward  the  Park  where  their  daily  walks  had 
led  them  and  set  a  rapid  pace.  Alan  kept  glancing 
at  her  in  a  frank  wonder.  How  beautiful  she  had 
been,  but  a  day  before,  how  harmonious, — and  now 
the  gray  veil  of  some  strange  aloofness  enwrapped  her 
and  removed  her  from  him.  There  seemed  to  be 
no  likelihood  of  renewing,  at  least  to-day,  their  past 
light  communion  of  glancing  wits.  In  the  Park,  as 
if  she  felt  relief  at  finding  her  objective,  her  pace 
slackened,  and  she  stopped  before  a  bench. 

"  Could  we  sit  down?  "  she  asked.  Then  when  they 
were  seated  she  turned  to  him  and  seemed  to  pounce. 


NEMESIS  515 

"I  must  go  away,"  she  said. 

Alan  simply  stared,  not  at  her,  but  the  thin  ice 
melted  on  the  walk  in  front  of  them.  He  knew  the 
answer,  not  to  her  but  Nemesis,  and  he  found  himself 
nodding  in  confirmation  of  that  inexorable  deity. 
Annette  was  only  the  mouth-piece  of  the  deity. 
"Of  course,"  he  was  saying  inwardly.  "Of  course 
you're  going  away.  I  could  have  told  you  that." 

But  he  did  say  aloud : 

"You  can't  go  away.  What  would  she  do  without 
you?" 

"That's  it,"  Annette  continued,  in  a  perfectly 
commonplace  tone.  "She  does  want  me,  but  that's 
because  I  needed  her  so  terribly.  She'd  never  seen 
anybody  who  needed  her  so  much — anybody  so 
gauche,  ignorant,  altogether  poverty-stricken  every 
way.  She's  made  me  over.  She's  given  and  given. 
And  what  have  I  done  for  her?  Turned  round  and 
worshipped  you." 

He  could  only  keep  on  staring  straight  in  front  of 
him  where  now,  at  the  edge  of  the  shrubbery,  a 
sparrow  was  pecking  at  some  stony  delicacy  and 
stopping  to  bicker  with  its  clan.  Could  he  possibly, 
he  thought,  under  the  savage  impulse  to  laugh,  with 
all  the  exquisite  cleverness  of  his  trained  pen,  have 
guessed  how  to  write  the  story  of  a  girl  confessing 
her  love  for  an  elderly  man?  Yet  she  was  doing  it 
with  calmness,  not,  it  seemed,  with  an  eye  to  her  own 
humiliation  or  the  lawlessness  of  her  emotion  as  it 
would  affect  either  of  them — only  as  it  might  affect 
Mildred. 


310  NEMESIS 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "I  didn't  know  it  myself 
until  last  night.  And  then,  when  I  thought  you 
might  be  hurt,  I  knew  I'd  rather  die  than  have  you. 
I  knew— " 

"My  child,"  said  Alan,  in  enormous  relief  now 
that  he  had  some  recognized  ground  to  stand  on, 
"that  wasn't  you  and  I.  It  was  *  Tristan.'  That 
devilish  Teutonic  paganism  works  everybody  up 
into  a  temporary  madness.  Whether  it's  good  magic 
or  bad  depends  on  what  you  are.  You're  full  of 
kindness,  dearness;  so  your  madness  makes  you 
want  to  give  somebody  something  beautiful.  And 
you  know  I  don't  deserve  very  much,  and  out  of  your 
beautifulness  you  hit  on  me.  And  you're  a  dear. 
But  stop  thinking  it's  anything  but  your  beautiful- 
ness.  Look  at  that  sparrow  there  trying  to  brain 
the  other  one.  Bloodthirsty  little  devils!" 

But  she  wouldn't  look  at  the  fighting  sparrows. 
She  stared  gloomily  over  them  into  the  bushes. 
"It  isn't  like  anything  else,"  she  said,  "being  with 
you.  You've  been  wonderful  to  me." 

"Dear  child,"  said  Alan,  "of  course  I'm  wonderful. 
That  comes  of  being  an  old  fellow  and  studying  the 
moves  in  the  game  of  life.  I've  studied  them  ex 
haustively,  on  account  of  her,  you  know.  I've  had 
to  keep  her  amused,  so  far  as  I  could." 

The  girl  nodded. 

"I  know,"  she  said.  "And  I  got  the  overflow. 
You  wanted  to  pay  me  for  loving  her.  Perhaps  you 
wanted  to  make  me  so  happy  I  shouldn't  go  away. 
I  thought  of  that." 


NEMESIS  317 

Alan  felt  miserably  that  he  was  caught.  He  had 
indeed  sacrificed  her,  so  far  as  he  had  played  upon 
her  fancy,  but  there  had  been  another  and  an  honest 
.  side  to  it.  If  he  had  tried  to  watch  and  tend  her  like 
a  flower  in  Mildred's  garden  of  life,  he  had  also 
found  his  undeserved  compensation  in  her  growing 
charm.  And,  so  he  resolved,  the  child  should  not 
be  forced  to  suffer,  in  the  jaded  after  days  of  emotion 
spent,  from  thinking  she  had  been  no  more  than  the 
sport  of  his  cunning  egotism. 

"You  mustn't  forget,"  he  said,  "Mildred  and  I 
have  no  children.  You  must  remember  how  tre 
mendously  fond  we  are  of  you." 

But  she  only  said:  "I  think  of  you  all  the  time. 
You're  everywhere,  in  everything  I  do." 

And  still  it  was  the  dispassionate  statement  of  an 
inevitable  and  unwelcome  fact. 

"Oh,  the  dickens!"  said  Alan  grotesquely.  "I'm 
not,  either.  You've  just  had  the  formula  of  that 
kind  of  thing  forced  on  you  by  that  infernal  opera. 
And  a  formula  taken  like  that  with  a  blare  of  sound 
and  fiddles  on  your  spinal  marrow — it's  no  joke, 
I  tell  you.  Discount  it,  same  as  I  do — as  we  all  do." 

"Yes,"  she  repeated,  somberly,  "you're  every 
where.  Once  I  was  lost  on  the  plains.  I  kept 
looking  at  the  bright  horizon,  and  when  I  looked 
higher  there  was  the  black  line  before  my  eyes. 
You're  like  that,  the  line.  That's  why  I  must  go 
away.  It  would  be  sickening  to  stay  on.  She'd 
see,  finally.  She'd  think  I  was  a  fool.  It  would 
hurt  her  horribly." 


S18  NEMESIS 

He  wanted  to  tell  her  he  had  all  the  plots  in  fiction 
stored  away  in  his  brain,  a  precautionary  measure 
against  plagiarizing,  and  that  the  next  move  in  the 
drama  would  be  his  forbidding  her  to  go  and  offer 
ing  to  go  instead.  And  somehow,  though  he  knew  it 
was  merely  the  move  on  the  board,  he  found  himself 
incredibly  making  it. 

"No,"  he  said,  "you  can't  go  away.  I'll  go  myself 
and  leave  you  to  see  what  a  little  stupid  you  are  to 
upset  the  kettle  of  fish  all  over  your  piano." 

"And  what  I  wanted  to  say  was  this,"  she  con 
tinued,  not  seeming  to  see  his  persuasive  lead. 
"When  I'm  gone,  you  must  make  her  keep  on  think 
ing  I'm  nice — " 

"You  are  nice,  child,"  he  threw  in,  from  his  de 
spair. 

"So  she  won't  ever  repent  liking  me.  And  you 
couldn't  do  it  really  unless  you  knew  I  was  going  for 
a  big  reason.  If  you  thought  it  was  only  a  little  one 
you'd  think  I  might  have  stayed.  And  she'd  find 
out  what  you  thought,  and  all  she's  done  for  me 
would  seem  wasted,  and  I  ungrateful!" 

She  was  so  simple,  so  dispassionate  really,  that 
she  made  the  tragic  circumstance,  if  not  common 
place,  yet  something  that  had  to  be  met  in  a  com 
monplace  way.  He  tried  returning,  with  a  desperate 
vault  even,  to  the  outer  aspect  of  the  miserable 
business. 

"But  where  are  you  going?"  he  asked.  "Back 
to  your  girls'  club,  or  whatever  it  was?" 

"No.    I'm  going  home/' 


NEMESIS  319 

"Home,  to  your  manufacturing  town?" 

"Yes." 

"And  give  up  your  music?" 

"  I  sha'n't  give  it  up.     I  shall  teach." 

"But  you'll  be  giving  up" — it  sounded  ridicu 
lously  cut-and-dried,  but  it  insisted  on  being  said 
and  in  that  most  obvious  way — "your  career." 

"I  can  teach  well  enough,"  she  said  indifferently. 
"As  for  the  rest — well,  it's  no  matter." 

He  wanted  to  tell  her  the  volumes  his  middle-age 
had  accumulated,  of  the  falls  youth  gets  in  its  mag 
nificent  ride  to  the  stars,  and  of  his  own  proven  cer 
tainty  that,  having  been  thrown,  there's  nothing  to 
do  but  pick  one's  self  up  and,  if  the  gay  steed  of 
glamour  has  galloped  away,  plod  along  on  two  feet. 
But  that  she  couldn't  listen  to  now.  She  wasn't 
ready  for  it.  His  chance  would  come  when  she  had 
traversed  the  vale  of  illusion,  when  she  had  found  he 
was  no  such  hero  of  renown  as  her  intemperate 
fancy  had  pictured  him.  Then,  after  her  forces 
surged  up  again,  as  the  forces  of  youth  will,  he  could 
tell  her  how  to  train  and  temper  them. 

She  had  risen,  and  he  rose,  too,  and  stood  waiting 
for  her. 

"It'll  be  easy  enough  to  find  a  reason,"  she  said. 
"Mother  isn't  well.  I  had  a  letter  from  her  this 
morning.  Poor  mother!  She  might  not  have  given 
out  if  I  hadn't  been  in  such  a  hurry  to  leave  her. 
She  was  just  getting  over  her  illness,  you  know.  If 
I'd  stayed  even  a  month  or  two — Well,  I'll  go  back 


now." 


320  NEMESIS 

They  walked  to  the  house  in  silence,  and  again  very 
fast.  As  he  kept  pace  with  her  hurrying  steps  he 
found  himself  breathless  with  the  consciousness  of 
her  quickening  mood.  At  the  door  he  left  her. 

"Tell  her  I  sha'n't  be  back  to  luncheon,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "I'll  tell  her,"  and,  without 
looking  at  him,  she  went  in. 

Alan  found  himself  at  home  that  night  unwill 
ingly,  irritated,  too,  because  Nemesis  had  brought 
the  peace  of  his  household  about  his  ears.  When  he 
opened  the  door,  it  was  to  an  indefinable  atmosphere 
of  change.  The  lights  were  lower,  it  seemed  to  him. 
The  house  had  returned  to  the  twilight  solitude  suited 
to  Mildred's  unstable  nerves.  In  her  own  room  he 
found  her,  prone  on  her  couch,  drawn  of  face  and 
piteous  in  look. 

"  She  has  gone,"  was  her  first  word. 

"Don't  mind  it,"  he  implored  her.  "Don't  let 
it  get  the  best  of  us." 

By  this  he  meant  Nemesis;  but  Mildred,  who  had 
not  his  private  and  personal  knowledge  of  the  god 
dess,  passed  over  his  cold  comfort  as  the  perfunctory 
commonplace  it  seemed. 

"It's  her  mother,"  she  continued.  "Her  mother 
needs  her.  I  offered  to  bring  her  here,  but  Annette 
refuses.  She  says  she  ought  to  go.  And  she  ought, 
Alan,  oughtn't  she,  if  her  mother  needs  her?  " 

"Maybe,"  he  said  miserably. 

"I  know  she  ought,"  said  Mildred.  "But  all  the 
same  I  feel — deserted." 

He,  too,  at  that  moment,  he  suddenly  realized, 


NEMESIS 

felt  deserted.  Where  was  the  April  presence  of  the 
girl  about  the  house,  her  unconscious  joy,  the  daily 
budding  of  her  sweet  intelligence?  What  should  he 
do  without  it?  But  Mildred  was  opening  her  last 
reserve  of  lonely  panic. 

"I  was  lonesome  before  she  went.  You  two  to 
gether,  always!  You  laughed  so  much.  You  were 
so  young.  You  will  never  be  the  same  without  her. 
Don't  you  know  you  never  will?" 

She  lay  there  looking  up  at  him,  and  he  looked 
blankly  down  at  her.  But,  close  as  they  were, 
there  was  something  between  them — the  wraith  of 
young  loveliness,  of  April  days.  He  gathered  him 
self,  as  he  always  had  at  her  call,  to  leap  abysses  with 
her  or  stumble  through  the  morass.  The  figure  he 
had  meant  to  use  to  persuade  and  hearten  Annette 
came  to  him,  and  he  smiled  at  Mildred,  almost  his 
old  patient  smile. 

"We've  got  to  pick  ourselves  up  again,"  he  said, 
"  and  go  along.  And  we're  going  together." 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


HP  HE  following    pages  contain  advertisements    of 
1     Macmillan  books  by  the  same  author. 


Bromley  Neighborhood 

BY  ALICE  BROWN 

Author  of  "The  Prisoner/'  "Children  of  Earth/'  "Road  to 
Castaly,"  etc. 

,  $1.50 


It  is  as.  the  novelist  of  New  England  that  Alice  Brown 
has  won  the  hearts  of  thousands  of  readers.  Few  writers 
have  been  able  to  portray  with  the  sympathy  and  the  under 
standing  that  are  hers  the  sturdy  folk  "way  down  east"  or  to 
picture  so  truly  the  environment  in  which  they  have  lived. 
As  the  years  go  by  Miss  Brown  loses  none  of  her  skill  in 
her  chosen  field ;  in  fact  each  book  seems  to  be  richer  in  char 
acterization  and  more  rbsorbing  in  theme.  Bromley  Neighbor- 
hood,  Miss  Brown's  new  novel,  is  no  exception.  It  is  a  story 
of  a  little  community  much  like  the  other  communities  which 
Miss  Brown  has  described,  and  of  the  sorrows  and  joys  of 
its  people. 

Particularly,  Bromley  Neighborhood  has  to  ao  with  the 
Neales,  the  hard,  unflinching  head  of  the  house;  Mary,  his 
wife,  who  in  her  long  life  with  him  revolts  only  once  at  the 
law  which  he  lays  down,  and  their  two  sons — Ben,  likeable  but 
weak,  and  Hugh,  a  bit  of  a  visionary,  but  guided  by  high 
ideals,  a  thorough  man.  Of  equal  importance  in  the  little 
drama  that  is  worked  out  is  Ellen,  daughter  of  a  neighbor, 
who  shuns  men's  society,  to  whom  the  v/ord  love  is  almost 
repulsive,  but  to  whom  love  comes  in  a  moment  and  forever. 
Aunt  Tabitha,  the  silent,  mouse-like  creature  who  lives  in 
mortal  dread  of  her  brother,  Thomas  Neale,  with  whom  by 
the  terms  of  their  father's  will  she  has  been  given  a  home, 
and  who  rarely  dares  venture  out  of  her  room  for  fear  of 
encountering  the  stern  presence  of  her  relative;  "Grissie" 
Gleason,  light-hearted,  a  lover  of  pretty  things,  who  almost 
comes  to  grief  through  her  own  thoughtlessness  and  that  of 
Ben,  and  above  all  Larry  Greene,  possibly  the  most  charming 
character  in  the  book,  a  giver  of  good  advice,  genial,  a  man 
of  parts,  whose  only  failing  is  a  top  great  fondness  for  drink 
— these  are  some  of  the  others  in  Bromley  Neighborhood 
around  whom  Miss  Brown  has  written  a  most  engaging 
romance. 

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Children  of  Earth 

Cloth,  i2mo, 

This  is  the  ten  thousand  dollar  American  prize  play. 
From  thousands  of  manuscripts  submitted  to  Mr.  Ames 
of  the  Little  Theater,  Miss  Brown's  was  chosen  as  being 
the  most  notable,  both  in  theme  and  characterization.  Miss 
Brown  has  a  large  following  as  novelist  and  short  story 
writer,  and  her  play  exhibits  those  rare  qualities  of  writ 
ing  and  those  keen  analyses  of  human  motives  which  have 
given  her  eminence  in  other  forms  of  literature. 

"  A  page  from  the  truly  native  life  of  the  nation,  magnifi 
cently  written." — New  York  Tribune. 

"Ranks  with  the  best  achievements  of  the  American 
theater." — Boston  Transcript. 

"Apple-trees  and  larkspur  and  lilacs  in  bloom,  shimmer 
ing  gowns  and  rose-trimmed  bonnets  of  an  older  time,  sap 
mounting  and  everything  breaking  bounds  because  of 
springtime  and  love  in  New  England, —  all  this  adds  charm 
to  the  graceful  manner  in  which  Miss  Alice  Brown  has 
presented  her  theme  in  the  play,  '  Children  of  Earth.' " — 
The  Dial. 

"It  has  the  essential  quality  of  great  art  —  verity,  and 
that  intangible,  elusive  something  that  for  lack  of  a  more 
definite  term  we  call  humanness." — New  York  Sun. 

"Fine  alike  in  craftsmanship  and  conception.  Delicately 
touching,  finished  with  characteristic  perfection,  it  is  at 
once  convincing  and  elusively  romantic.  It  proves  beyond 
question  that  humanity's  'big  passions'  may  be  discussed 
in  manner  vital  yet  decent,  that  sin  does  not  necessarily 
triumph  for  the  securing  of  good  effects." — Chicago 
Herald. 

"  There  is  no  writer  who  has  conveyed  to  printed  pages 
more  intelligently  and  sympathetically  than  this  one  the 
impress  of  lives  and  characters  in  our  rugged  East.  That 
Miss  Brown  has  known  better  than  some  other  authors  how 
to  add  the  right  touch  of  poetry  to  human  aspects  otherwise 
somewhat  grim  is  plainer  perhaps  in  the  drama  than  in  her 
tales  conventionally  told."—  New  York  World. 

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The  Prisoner 


Cloth,  I2mo,  $1.50 

This  novel  of  Alice  Brown's  is  one  of  her  most  ambitious, 
and  the  most  important  of  her  contributions  to  literature. 
"The  Prisoner"  is  a  man  released  from  a  term  of  penal  servi 
tude,  returned  to  the  world,  to  his  father,  wife  and  sisters. 
His  relations  with  them,  as  well  as  theirs  to  each  other,  are 
subjects  to  which  the  author  devotes  her  keen  insight,  her 
ability  to  analyze  mental  states  and  to  present  to  her  readers 
subtle  complexities  of  thought  and  of  motive.  She  writes 
with  a  charm  of  manner  quite  her  own,  easily  and  clearly, 
with  a  wealth  of  atmosphere  and  an  absorbing  interest  of  plot 
that  carry  the  reader  through  to  the  end  of  the  book. 


The  Road  to  Castaly 

$1.50 

Readers  of  Children  of  Earth,  and  of  many  other  of  Miss 
Brown's  books  for  that  matter,  must  have  seen  many  an  evi 
dence  about  them  of  the  really  natural  poet.  Some  years  ago, 
furthermore,  she  published  a  little  collection  of  verse  which 
was  warmly  received  by  the  critics,  and  which  served  to 
intensify  the  desire  for  more.  This  volume,  then,  will  be 
welcome  to  Miss  Brown's  admirers,  and  to  literature  lovers 
generally.  It  contains  the  earlier  poems  referred  to,  which 
were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  also  issued  under  the  title  of  The 
Road  to  Castaly,  and  much  new  material  as  well — the  poet's 
latest  and  most  mature  work. 

"A  fine  book  for  the  home  library  this,  because  responsive 
to  so  many  moods,  attuned  to  such  varied  fancies.  Here  is 
true  poetry,  neither  academic  nor  sensational,  narrow-gauged, 
scattering  nor  morbid;  here,  on  the  contrary,  is  work  fine  and 
sweet  and  delightful,  from  inspiring  message  to  finish  and  fit 
ting  mode." — Chicago  Herald. 


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My  Love  and  I 

Decorated  Cloth,  I2mot  $1.50 

'"My  Love  and  I'  takes  rank  with  the  best  work  of  the 
best  modern  English  and  American  novelists.  .  .  .  The 
book  which  originally  appeared  under  the  Nom  de  plume  of 
Martin  Redfield  is  now  reissued  with  its  real  author's  name 
on  the  title  page." — Indianapolis  News. 

"...  a  compelling  story,  one  that  is  full  of  dignity  and 
truth  and  that  subtly  calls  forth  and  displays  the  nobilities 
of  human  nature  that  respond  to  suffering." — Argonaut. 

".  .  .  the  story  has  a  quality  of  its  own  that  makes  it 
notably  worth  while." — North  American  Review. 

"A  story  which  is  strong,  readable,  and  of  a  quality  far 
above  the  ordinary  run  of  fiction." — Boston  Times. 

"A  book  of  care,  tenderness,  deep  pathos  and  wise  under 
standing  of  the  human  heart." — The  Bookman. 

"A  superior,  splendid  story;  it  is  filled  with  strong  senti 
ment  without  being  sentimental.  Some  of  the  situations 
are  not  pleasant,  but  the  treatment  of  them  is  never  dis 
agreeable." — Los  Angeles  Times. 

"It  is  a  powerful  story,  powerful  in  purpose  and  in 
method."— Christian  Work. 

"A  superfine  love  story." — New  York  World. 

"The  strength  and  appeal  of  the  book  are  in  its  wonderful 
revelations  of  the  depths  of  a  man's  soul." — Bujfalo  Express. 


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Robin  Hood  s  Barn  /p*****  /*»<> 


".  .  .  abounds  in  quiet  humor  and  wholesome  idealism, 
and  is  dramatic  with  the  tenseness  of  human  heart  throbs. 
It  is  very  enjoyable  to  read  —  interesting,  original,  whole 
some."  —  Boston  Times. 

"...  a  psychological  romance  which  moves  interestingly 
and  strongly  from  start  to  finish."  —  Springfield  Republican. 

"A  tale  of  buoyant  optimism."  —  Boston  Transcript. 

"The  author  has  displayed  much  quaint  humor,  skill  in 
character  drawing,  and  dramatic  force."  —  Christian  Ad 
vocate. 

The  Secret  of  the  Clan 

Illustrated,  Cloth,  I2mo,  $1.3$ 

"Alice  Brown  has  written  a  decidedly  original  story  of  girl 
life  in  'The  Secret  of  the  Clan'  for  it  is  perhaps  the  first 
time  that  any  one  has  recognized  that  side  of  healthy  girl 
character  which  delights  in  making  believe  on  a  large  scale." 

—  Town  Talk,  San  Francisco. 

"It  is  a  bright  story  delightfully  told."  —  Chicago  News. 

"A  story  with  unfailing  vivacity  and  much  literary 
charm."—  Pittsburgh  Post. 

"The  author  shows  an  unfailing  understanding  of  the  heart 
of  girlhood."  —  Christian  Advocate. 

"It  is  fine  and  sweet,  and  a  good  tale  as  well  —  Alice 
Brown  may  be  trusted  for  that."  —  The  Independent. 

"A  charming  story  of  children  and  for  children  though 
grown-ups  in  numbers  will  read  and  enjoy  it,  too."  —  Boston 
Times. 

"A  fresh,  wholesome  story  for  younger  girls."  —  Baltimore 
News.  _ 

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I  LJ        / 


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